I posted a few examples of work by French artist Gilles Rimbault last year, and was hoping at the time that further drawings might come to light. We have D.R. Tenge to thank for posting these and other scans from Plexus magazine on the same LJ page where I found some of the earlier works, together with text that accompanied the pictures. “He pursues an endless search in the ‘erotisme fantastique'” Plexus tells us, and that’s a great description of this curious sub-genre which I’ve previously referred to (following Philip José Farmer) as “the pornography of the weird”. From what I know about Plexus it specialised in this typically late 60s/early 70s blend of science fiction, fantasy and erotic exploration, being a spin-off from Pauwels & Bergier’s magazine of “fantastic realism”, Planète; it also wasn’t the only magazine doing so which makes me wish that Taschen (or somebody) would delve into this sorely neglected area.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Ran Akiyoshi, 1922–1982
• The art of Gilles Rimbault
• The art of Jim Leon, 1938–2002
• The art of Sibylle Ruppert
• The art of Bertrand
The series on the seven deadly sins is nice…
In your previous post about Raimbault, you mention in the comments “a big French book of occult images from 1964”. I wonder what is the title of this book ?
The book is Histoire en 1000 images de la magie (1961, Editions du Pont Royal) by Maurice Bessy. It was reprinted in 1964 in an English edition as A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural from Spring Books.
Thanks John, I’ll track it down. Did you find Rimbault’s book (you spoke of it on your previous post) ? All I managed to discover was a catalog from an exhibition in the late 70’s.
Regarding Planète, a short essay (in french) about its history can be found here : http://greguti.free.fr/litt/planete.htm
Maybe this will be of interest to some readers…
Clearly this chap has been looking at a lot of Hans Bellmer.
Piotr: No, that slipped my mind. One useful aspect of making posts like these is they help jog your memory!
Michelangelo: Indeed, I mentioned Bellmer in the earlier post.
I am enchanted by the few Rimbault’s works I’ve seen… I wish there were more available to us.