{design} – Page 277 – { feuilleton }

Bollywood posters

left: Jangal Mein Mangal (1972); centre: Shalimar (1978); right: Jaani Dushman (1979).

Three examples of the art of the lurid from this site which has a huge selection of Indian poster art from the Fifties on. I still haven’t seen Shalimar but I’ve been playing the great soundtrack by India’s Ennio Morricone, Rahul Dev Burman, continually for the past year. There’s also several pages of Lollywood billboards from Pakistan. And a gallery of posters for trashy horror movies from the west; these people are lurid connoisseurs. I actually own the David Cronenberg Shivers/Rabid poster on that pulp page, something I’d completely forgotten about. Had I seen the utterly dreadful art for Zuma 2: Hell Serpent earlier I could have included it in the Men with snakes post.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Lussuria, Invidia, Superbia
• Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls
• The poster art of Bob Peak
• A premonition of Premonition
• Perfume: the art of scent
• Metropolis posters
• Film noir posters
• Shalimar by Rahul Dev Burman

Decorated Russian book covers

left: Histoire du Livre LES EMAUX BYZANTINS (“Byzantine Enamels”) AW Zwenigorodskoi, 1898.
right: PUTESHESTVIE TSESAREVICHA NA VOSTOK (“Journey to the Orient of Tsarevich Nicolas II”), 1893–1897.

Beautiful and very expensive rare books at Russianartandbooks.com.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive

Family Dog postcards

top: William Henry (1967); Victor Moscoso (1967).
bottom: Victor Moscoso (1967); Kelley/Mouse (1967).

Marvellous. Oldhandbills.com has a lot of this stuff, loads of designs I’ve never seen before. Via Arthur.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The poster art of Marian Zazeela

Russian book jackets, 1917–1942

Pushtorg (Fur-Trade) by Il’ia L’vovich Sel’vinskii (1931). Designer uncredited.

Tri veka (Three Centuries) by Dmitrii Dmitrievich Blagoi (1933). Designer uncredited.

Lots more here. Via Coudal.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive

Penguin Labyrinths and the Thief’s Journal

Detail from La Havane by René Portocarrero; photo by C. Marker.

This week’s book finds are a pair of titles I hadn’t come across before in these particular editions, another haul from the vast continent that is the Penguin Books back catalogue. Labyrinths I’ve had for years in a later edition (see below) but the cover of this one seems more suited to Borges (as much as he can be illustrated) than the somewhat bland Surrealism of illustrator Peter Goodfellow. René Portocarrero (1912–1985) was a Cuban painter with a post-Picasso style who specialised in hallucinogenic profiles like the one here. And it’s a guess but I’d bet the “C. Marker” who photographed the painting is French filmmaker Chris Marker (who I compared to Borges last year), director of La Jetée and Sans Soleil. Marker worked as a photo-journalist for many years and made a documentary entitled ¡Cuba Sí! in 1961.

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