Recent picture research turned up another illustrator whose work I hadn’t seen before. Rafael Romero Calvet was Spanish, and the dates above aren’t necessarily accurate (he may have been born in 1884). He did die young, however, and probably too soon to make more of an impact outside the magazines he was working for. The covers here are all from Los Contemporáneos, a Spanish publication that ran from 1909 to 1926. Many of Calvet’s covers—dating from 1909–1910—are grotesque and macabre enough to suit Der Orchideengarten, although that magazine wouldn’t be launched for another ten years.
There’s more of Calvet’s work at Wikimedia Commons, while this feature at Collectors Weekly has a glimpse of his cover for Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.
Continue reading “The art of Rafael Romero Calvet, 1885–1925”