The Fool – { feuilleton }

The South Bank Show: The Making of Sgt Pepper

Here come the anniversaries again, driven by nostalgia and the imperatives of corporations to flog you another version of that thing you already own. Anniversaryism grew out of the CD reissue boom, with one of the first significant incidents being the debut release on CD of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album in 1987. This week you can walk into a shop and buy the album yet again in a variety of formats, the 50th anniversary now coinciding happily for legions of accountants with the current boom in overpriced vinyl.

This post is complicit, of course, just as Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention were complicit in reinforcing Sgt Pepper‘s status as a cultural monument even while carping at it; satirists always end up attached to what they attack. The latest round of retrospective attention had me wondering whether Alan Benson’s excellent South Bank Show documentary about the making of the album was on YouTube. It isn’t (but it is available elsewhere), probably because there’s a documentary in the new Sgt Pepper box set that seems to be the same film. The South Bank Show documentary was broadcast in the UK in 1992 for another anniversary, the year being the 25th since the album’s release. This is one of those television productions crafted to deliver maximum content with a minimum of fuss, so there’s no hyperactive editing, and no pointless Reactions To The Great Work from minor pop celebrities. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are all present to discuss the creation of the music, from the first song of the sessions, Strawberry Fields Forever, through to A Day In The Life. In the film’s real coup, George Martin sits at a mixing desk in the Abbey Road studio pulling faders up and down to show how the songs were pieced together; he also explains how some of the album’s more unusual effects were produced. The film runs just under 50 minutes, and it’s notable that nearly all the songs being discussed are by John Lennon even though this is an album dominated by Paul McCartney’s voice, and the initial concept was McCartney’s. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Lyrical Substance Deliberated
• The Fool album covers
• The Sea of Monsters
• Tomorrow Never Knows
• Yellow Submarine comic books
• A splendid time is guaranteed for all
• Heinz Edelmann
• Please Mr. Postman
• All you need is…

The art of Frieda Harris, 1877–1962

Searching around for artwork by Frieda Harris turned up a few examples I hadn’t seen before including the marvellous painting above which is unfortunately untitled and undated. Harris is very familiar to Aleister Crowley aficionados and those with an interest in the Tarot via her paintings for the Thoth Tarot deck, a project that she and Crowley worked on during the 1930s. The deck is justly celebrated for its modernising of the Tarot symbolism, and for its radical art style which wasn’t afraid to combine some of the developments in 20th-century art with Harris’s studies of Projective Synthetic Geometry.

Masonic Tracing Boards.

Less familiar is her work away from the Tarot deck, some of which can be seen here. Prior to meeting Crowley, Harris was involved with Freemasonry for which she produced three designs for the Masonic teaching aids known as Tracing Boards. (See larger copies here.) I used to think these looked like outtakes from the Tarot deck but seeing them in the light of the mysterious painting above it’s evident that the Tarot style wasn’t unique to that set of cards.

Liber Aleph vel CXI: The Book of Wisdom or Folly (1918) by Aleister Crowley.

A book cover which pre-dates the Tarot designs. The heads are the traditional embodiments of the four elements but with one change: the human figure has a feminine face rather than the usual masculine features. The same figures appear on her painting for the final Tarot Trump, The Universe (below), but in a more traditional guise.

Continue reading “The art of Frieda Harris, 1877–1962”

Weekend links 210

Crashing Diseases And Incurable Airplanes (2014) by USA Out Of Vietnam. Artwork by Amy Torok.

Amy Torok’s cover art for the debut album by Canadian band USA Out Of Vietnam is pleasingly reminiscent of the surreal and psychedelic collages of Wilfried Sätty. The music within has been described as “a cross between ELO and Sunn O)))” which it is up to a point, although to these ears the group are more in the Sunn O))) camp than the post-Beatles pop of Jeff Lynne and co. The sound is big whatever label you apply, and promises much for the future.

• Mysterious creatures of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s ‘Tentacles’. The Aquarium bought one of my drawings last year for this exhibition which juxtaposes tentacular artwork with live creatures. The show runs until 2016.

• Jon Hassell’s 1990 album, City: Works Of Fiction, has been reissued in an expanded edition including a live concert collaboration with Brian Eno, and a collection of remixes/alternate takes.

• Photographer Jonathan Keys uses antique camera equipment to give his views of contemporary Britain a patina of the past.

• Roman Polanski and the man who invented masochism. Nicholas Blincoe on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Venus in Fur (sic).

• Mixes of the week are by James Pianta, E.M.M.A. (whose Blue Gardens album I helped design), and Balduin.

• Sweet Jane unearths another great article about psychedelic London: The Fool and Apple Boutique, 1968.

• “Did Chris Marker think history to be not only an infinite book but a sacred one?” asks Barry Schwabsky.

• Front Free Endpaper on the story behind the cover photo of A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White.

• Mapping the Viennese Alien Event Site. Christina Scholz explores another Zone.

• Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue. The first and only movie about Moondog.

• Rick Poynor on rediscovering the lost art of the typewriter.

• At BLDGBLOG: 100 Views of a Drowning World.

• Miguel Chevalier’s magic carpets

• Venus In Furs (1967) by The Velvet Underground | Sex Voodoo Venus (1985) by Helios Creed | Venus As A Boy (1993) by Björk

The art of Marijke Koger

Love Life (1966).

A slight return to The Fool, and specifically the work of Marijke Koger. Since The Fool was a collective it can be difficult separating out the work of individuals but all of these examples are credited as hers in Norman Hathaway & Dan Nadel’s excellent Electrical Banana (2011) book. The nature of the collective also tends to downplay the contribution of women to psychedelic art, with Koger tending to receive less individual credit than Bonnie MacLean does for her US concert posters. Koger’s Love Life design is very advanced for 1966, and could easily have been created at almost any time in the next decade. The Bob Dylan poster below is the most florid representation of Mr Zimmerman I’ve seen, an image that fits the times more than Dylan’s persona which remained resolutely untouched by acid culture.

It’s no surprise with this subject that Sweet Jane has already looked at the work of The Fool. There’s more photos and designs to be found at A Dandy in Aspic (many of them from the Electrical Banana book) while Bang The Drum All Day has some of the graphics produced for Brian Epstein’s Sunday Night at the Saville concerts.

Fashion drawing (1966).

Lucy (1966).

Love Bob Dylan (1967).

Tiger Man (1970).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Fool album covers
• Through the Wonderwall

The Fool album covers

The Fool (1968).

Many people know the work of design collective The Fool even if they couldn’t tell you the name or the names of any of the individuals involved. The accelerated career trajectory of Dutch artists Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma took them from a hippie enclave on the isle of Ibiza in 1966, to London and work for The Beatles throughout 1967 thanks to their distinctive brand of rainbow-hued psychedelia. Marijke Koger says the name The Fool was chosen after they met Crowley-obsessed blues singer Graham Bond who introduced them to the Tarot deck. Barry Finch and Josje Leeger later joined Koger and Posthuma. For The Beatles the group created the short-lived mural for the Apple boutique in Baker Street (removed after complaints), the decoration on John Lennon’s piano, and the inner sleeve for the Sgt Pepper album. The gatefold interior of the album was going to incorporate a Fool painting but Robert Fraser apparently persuaded the band to replace this with a group photo. The Fool themselves (and their decor) appear in the Beatles-produced feature film, Wonderwall (1968).

Proposed interior for the Sgt Pepper album (1967).

Given all this sudden visibility it’s surprising they weren’t more in demand for album cover designs although they were also busy producing florid outfits for other groups. The Beatles clothes on the All You Need is Love broadcast are Fool creations. Of the album covers, the one for The Incredible String Band is probably the most well-known. This small collection reminds me I still haven’t heard Evolution by The Hollies. The work on that cover led to a collaboration with Graham Nash on an album by The Fool (and session musicians) in 1968. The collective split up in 1969 with Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma relocating to California.

• Marijke Koger-Dunham’s site
• Simon Posthuma’s site

Sgt Pepper inner sleeve.

The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion (1967) by The Incredible String Band.

Evolution (1967) by The Hollies. Clothes and design by The Fool, photo by Karl Ferris.

Picknick (1967) by Boudewijn De Groot.

Move (1968) by The Move.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Through the Wonderwall