Archive for ottobre 2013
Little People
Twenty-five covers for the 1930s Spanish publication Gente Menuda by Francisco López Rubio (1895–1965) and others
From the collection of Museo ABC in Madrid and with great thanks to curator Felipe Hernández Cava and my friend Alfonso Melendez
These covers come from two exhibits curated by Felipe Hernández Cava for Museo ABC: one on Gente Menuda, the other on Francisco López Rubio.
Gente Menuda first appeared in 1904 as a children's supplement of Blanco y Negro. Its heyday and real popularity occurred from 1932 up until the Spanish Civil War. Some of the artists involved were Salvador Bartolozzi, Piti Bartolozzi, Masberger, Ramírez, Tauler, Tono, Viera Sparza, K-Hito, Barbero, Alonso, A.T.C., Hidalgo de Caviedes, Climent, Serny, Mihura, and Hortelano.
Curator Felipe Hernández Cava is also one of Spain's best comic strip writers, starting out in the El Cubri collective.
Much gratitude to the ABC Museum staff for sending the two catalogs.
Alfonso Melendez, who introduced me to this world of illustration, shows a lot of his own work and the work of his brother, illustrator Francisco Melendez, on his Facebook page.
Sometimes familiar-looking characters make guest appearances:
From the collection of Museo ABC in Madrid and with great thanks to curator Felipe Hernández Cava and my friend Alfonso Melendez
Gente Menuda, 1933, cover by Lopez Rubio
These covers come from two exhibits curated by Felipe Hernández Cava for Museo ABC: one on Gente Menuda, the other on Francisco López Rubio.
Gente Menuda first appeared in 1904 as a children's supplement of Blanco y Negro. Its heyday and real popularity occurred from 1932 up until the Spanish Civil War. Some of the artists involved were Salvador Bartolozzi, Piti Bartolozzi, Masberger, Ramírez, Tauler, Tono, Viera Sparza, K-Hito, Barbero, Alonso, A.T.C., Hidalgo de Caviedes, Climent, Serny, Mihura, and Hortelano.
Curator Felipe Hernández Cava is also one of Spain's best comic strip writers, starting out in the El Cubri collective.
Much gratitude to the ABC Museum staff for sending the two catalogs.
Alfonso Melendez, who introduced me to this world of illustration, shows a lot of his own work and the work of his brother, illustrator Francisco Melendez, on his Facebook page.
Gente Menuda, 1933, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1934, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1932, cover by Felix Alonso
Gente Menuda, 1935, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1936, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1936, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1932, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1932, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1933, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1933, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1934, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1934, cover by Lopez Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1932, cover by A.T.C. (Angeles Torner Cervera)
Gente Menuda, 1932, cover by A.T.C. (Angeles Torner Cervera)
Gente Menuda, 1931, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1934, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1934, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1934, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1935, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1936, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1934, cover by Lopez Rubio
Sometimes familiar-looking characters make guest appearances:
Gente Menuda, 1936, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1933, cover by López Rubio
Gente Menuda, 1936, cover by López Rubio
Vincent van Gogh's never-before-seen sketchbooks
Did
you know Vincent van Gogh kept a sketchbook? Several of them, in fact.
For years, seven of them were kept at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum,
hidden away in the institution's archives. Now, they've been unveiled
for all the world to see in Molly Oldfield's The Secret Museum.
The first sketch in the Van Gogh booklet pictured above is of a church in Neunan, The Netherlands.
Secret Museum comes to our attention via Brain Pickings' Maria Popova,
who harbors the best kind of obsession with the scrawls and doodles of
history's greatest minds. Oldfield's book, she says, provides a
fascinating look at Van Gogh's life and his development as an artist –
that they contain within their pages the seeds of inspiration for some
of his greatest work.
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"The
first sketchbook has a royal blue, marbled inside cover and an empty
pocket at the back," writes Oldfield in her description of Van Gogh's
drawings. "The first image he sketched in it was a church in Nuenen. He
later painted this church in View of the Sea at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen. [Pictured at left.]"
In the
final sketchbook, rough depictions of sunflowers channel Van Gogh's
unmistakable eye for natural forms; though, as Oldfield notes, when he
drew them, Van Gogh was about as far from famous as a person could be.
Having
never sold a painting in his life, at that moment, Van Gogh would never
have conceived of a time when his sunflowers would be instantly
recognized across the planet."
Just beautiful. We'd love to flip through some of these sketchbooks ourselves.
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