A Journey Round My Skull

Sanya's Cat

2012-02-19T11:56:00.000-05:00

I bought this print from Sanya Glisic and it looks even better in real life (as most things do). Via her etsy shop.

I featured Sanya's Struwwelpeter on 50 Watts last year.

La novela rosa

2012-02-14T21:09:00.000-05:00

Book covers from Spain circa 1900-1930 via Madrid.es

Prosper's Caricatures

2012-02-03T14:18:00.000-05:00

Three caricatures by the writer Prosper Mérimée (France, 1803-1870)

I came to the Walters Art Museum through the Scout Report through BibliOdyssey's tweet

"This caricature may allude to the 'Seven-League Boots,' which enable the wearer to take enormous strides as in 'Le Petit Pouchet (Hop o' My Thumb),' a fairy tale written by Charles Perrault (1628-1703)."

"A bizarre actor appears in a tutu, a female ballet costume."

"This caricature shows a fancifully attired soldier wearing a plumed bicorn hat."

Helgi Thorgils Fridjónsson

2012-01-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

2009 self-portrait by Icelandic artist Helgi Thorgils Fridjónsson, via a recent Czech exhibit of his works

Bagaría on Mars

2012-01-23T01:43:00.001-05:00

This is a martian-heavy companion to my huge 50 Watts post on Spanish caricaturist Luis Bagaria. Most are from the 1924 series "Bagaría on Mars."

This is a martian-heavy companion to my huge 50 Watts post on Spanish caricaturist Luis Bagaria. Go there for more info and images.

Mikalojus Vilutis 2

2012-01-20T12:38:00.001-05:00

Here's my promised post of earlier work by Lithuanian artist Mikalojus Vilutis (born 1944). I've gathered them from around the net, mostly from an auction house (so some of them are watermarked). Here's the Illustrarium page for Mikalojus Vilutis, who is known as a master of sillkscreen/serigraphy (the method used for most of the works featured here).

See the first post

1973

1971

1973

1978

1990

1984

1995

'Fortune Teller,' 1991

1989

See the first post

Hiroshi Manabe

2012-01-16T11:40:00.002-05:00

I featured this last one in the first Space Teriyaki post:

Bio by Ben Ettinger

Hiroshi Manabe 真鍋博
1932-2000. Born in Ehime prefecture.

Manabe is one of the most famous illustrators of the postwar period, having been the person who brought a certain degree of respectability to the art of the book illustration. He pioneered his own personal style characterized by highly colorful scenes full of clean, flowing lines, where both man and nature are uniformly stylized in a way that seems to speak of his very personal idealistic, hopeful stance towards the future. (This blazing 1960s vision of the future is lovingly recaptured in Mind Game.) He was extremely prolific as a book cover designer, designing the covers for many novels by famous alternative sci-fi writers Shin'ichi Hoshi and Yasutaka Tsutsui, and was outspoken on various issues, authoring numerous of his own nonfiction tomes. Born and raised in the rural city of Niihama on the north side of Shikoku, Manabe's art has become a part of the landscape of his hometown, both figuratively and literally, as his illustrations decorate various installations around the city, including the Niihama Women's Plaza and an anti-nuclear arms monument in the central park. [via]

This is a supplement to my ongoing 50 Watts' series "Space Teriyaki." These illustrations are from the late 70s to mid-80s.

Egene Koo

2012-01-10T00:29:00.000-05:00

I found myself browsing a lot of Korean art today. It can be maddening to translate names.

Here's a work by Egene Koo.

On 50 Watts: The Diagram Queen, works by Korean artist Minjeong An (born 1981)

Alfred Jarry Bio

2012-01-06T00:07:00.001-05:00

I haven't had a chance to properly flip through it let alone read it, but I didn't want to go too long without mentioning this bio of Patron Saint Alfred Jarry by Patron Saint Alastair Brotchie of Atlas Press.

(Currently in the middle of: Death Comes for the Archbishop, Rameau's Nephew, and A Voice Through A Cloud...the last book way too overwhelming to read in bed, I learned last night.)

Unurthed

2012-01-02T17:49:00.000-05:00

I've been happily digging through the archives of the wide-ranging art blog Unurthed.

This is a Basohli painting ca. 1700. For very different Basohli paintings see this recent 50 Watts post.

Gori Muñoz for Lorca

2011-12-28T13:36:00.000-05:00

Illustrations by Gori Muñoz for a volume of Lorca’s posthumous poems, 1945
via Bibliofilia novohispana.
An Amazon search for the artist brings up many results.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T16:42:00.000-05:00

See the 50 Watts' post of eleven watercolor faces, courtesy of a Japanese library covered by BibliOdyssey in 2008. I resisted the urge to photoshop some Christmas green into this image.

Reynard the Fox

2011-12-21T01:41:00.001-05:00

Illustrations from Reinecke Fuchs, circa 1880 via a German library. The watercolors are by Heinrich Leutemann, working close to the style of Wilhelm von Kaulbach's famous versions. (The fox is anatomically-correct in both versions!)

This post is a supplement to my 50 Watts' "Kinderbuch series" of German, Austrian, and Swiss children's books

Alfred Pal

2011-12-19T22:55:00.002-05:00

Alfred Pal, via http://dizajn.hr

I learned about this illustrator from A-Ž SFRJ, the blog of the folks behind the Leksikon YU Mitologie (I just bought a copy and will feature it soon)

Colonial Love for McMushie's Hamburgers

2011-12-19T14:07:00.000-05:00

From the Colonial Love series by Bengt Böckman

I featured his late 60s series "Projeckt 666" on But Does it Float

Lacking one brick

2011-12-18T11:58:00.000-05:00

Germany, c. 1890, Mosaic game with about 160 geometrical wooden color bricks..."Lacking 1 brick."

I've been coming across a lot of interesting artifacts while researching German/Austrian/Swiss children's books for this Kinderbuch series.

Alexander Andreev's Tarot

2011-12-16T01:34:00.000-05:00

From a tarot deck by Alexander Andreev

Mikalojus Vilutis

2011-12-14T19:17:00.005-05:00

In two posts at Animalarium, Laura turned me on to Illustrarium, a website for Lithuanian children's book illustrators (Lithuania was the 2011 Guest of Honour at the Bologna Children's Book Fair).

Rooting around on Illustrarium, I found the page for Mikalojus Vilutis (born 1944) and asked him if I could feature his work.

The illustrations in this post come from Fables by Vytautas Landsbergis (Kronta, Vilnius 2011) and A Cake. For many years before illustrating books and working digitally, Vilutis worked in silkscreen/serigraphy and he's known as a master of the method (he's taught at Vilnius Academy of Arts since 1989). I will soon feature some of those earlier works.

(This post went live well before it was supposed too...some of you may have seen it in embryonic form —oh blogger, how I (didn't f*cking) miss thee. Part 2 coming soon.)

(A search reveals that Monster Brains linked to a Russian page on Vilutis way back in 2007.)

Tumbling Old Women

2011-12-13T23:33:00.001-05:00

In September 2010 I featured illustrator Joanna Neborsky's adaptation of Fénéon's Novels In Three Lines. Joanna has since worked her magic for deadpan Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms:

"Daniil Kharms (1905–1942) wore a hat to protect his ideas from being seen. He smoked a pipe to appear English (he was Russian). He wrote twenty children's books. This is not one of them.

"This short story from 1936 is illustrated in twenty collaged pages. Available in English and Italian editions. English translation courtesy Matvei Yankelevich and The Overlook Press."

via Joanna Neborsky

Mikoto Fanning

2011-12-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

Leftover from my post of 1950s Japanese ads

Good morning, sunshine!

2011-12-12T20:36:00.001-05:00

Portrait of Michel Leiris by Francis Bacon, 1985 via Asymptote

"The immense force, it seems, that will have to be deployed to move us from the first rough attempt to recover ourselves to a complete mustering, when -- after the three blows struck in some unknown place by the mysterious stage manager who oversees the daily recommencement of the action -- the footlights of what we persisted in concealing of life are no less mysteriously turned on; the anguish, as soon as we are drawn from the dark by this signal, of feeling petrified, restored almost to consciousness but without any control over these inanimate limbs, these scattered bones awaiting some last judgment; the despair, without the attenuation of any outcry, of ever emerging from the mattress of sleep that has become confused with the physical mattress -- itself thick and fleecy -- on which the night has lain down with us; the brutal event, finally, wresting us from these pangs when (without our knowing how such a vapor, with its stifling billows, could have dissipated all at once) we find ourselves with our eyes unsealed."

--Michel Leiris, from Scraps (Rules of the Game vol. 2), 1955 (trans. Lydia Davis, 1997). Buy your very own copy for $.62 on Amazon.

Fragile Demon: Juan Soriano in Mexico

2011-12-12T13:20:00.000-05:00

Juan Soriano, The Beach, 1943

Juan Soriano, Portrait of Lola Alvarez-Bravo with Juan Soriano as a Child, 1944

Juan Soriano, Still Life with Self-Portrait, 1949

Juan Soriano, The Dead Girl, The Wake, 1946

Juan Soriano, Girl with a Mask, 1945

Juan Soriano, Saint Jerome Mourned by Angels, 1949

Juan Soriano, The Burial, 1942

From a random library find: Fragile Demon: Juan Soriano in Mexico, 1935 to 1950

Wikipedia says:

Juan Soriano (1920-2006) was a Mexican painter and sculptor.[...]

He became a member of the Mexican School cultural movement also featuring Frida Kahlo and poet Octavio Paz. He also joined the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios.

Franz Sedlacek on Monster Brains

2011-12-11T13:10:00.009-05:00

Franz Sedlacek, The Unicorn, 1925 via Monster Brains.

I love it when I couldn't possibly correctly guess the date of an image.

Kati Duquet Long emailed and made sure I didn't miss this one. Thanks!

Krzysztof Skórczewski

2011-12-10T20:20:00.001-05:00

A 2006 copperplate engraving by Krzysztof Skórczewski.

I posted some of his architectural works on But Does it Float.

Also see these cool photos of the artist at work.

Can you believe it?

2011-12-10T02:09:00.001-05:00

It's true. For no real reason, I'm reviving A Journey Round My Skull.

50 Watts will remain my primary online vehicle. Journey will return to what it was

in the early days: a simple diary/scrapbook about things I read and see.

I won't be heavily pushing it. It will just exist.

The face and posture I'm making as I type this:

1906 watercolor left over from the 50 Watts post Kylberg's Cocktails