Art-o-mart: July 2010

Blisters Blackout Submission Call

Print Club are now accepting submissions for their December show, Blisters Blackout - "40 Illustrators. 40 Edition and hand signed prints. 40 Pounds each".

All entries must be new work, and for the 'blackout' must have an element of glow-in-the-dark. Throughout opening night the exhibition space will be blacked-out revealing the glowing bits of the designs.

So get your skates on, the closing date for submissions is 30 September 2010 after which time 50 posters will be selected for the show.

For more information and to see work from previous Blisters shows visit Print Club London.

Roman Cieślewicz Retrospective

London's Royal College of Art are exhibiting the first major UK retrospective of Polish designer, Roman Cieślewicz's work from Friday (16 July) until 17 August.

"Cieślewicz was - alongside Fernando Arrabal and Alejandro Jodorowsky - a member of Panique, the 'last' surrealist group in France. At the same time he was a brilliant art director at Elle, and a contributor to Vogue. Remarkably prolific, he also worked closely with figures from the worlds of advertising and fashion including Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton.

Extraordinarily talented as an image-maker, Cieślewicz’s tools were not the pen or the brush but the scalpel and scissors. Working with collage, he produced compelling and original images by reworking familiar icons such Che Guevara or Mona Lisa. “I always go for the maximum picture and the maximum information. You need to stimulate imagination to the maximum” - he once said in an interview."

The exhibition will include 150 pieces of Cieślewicz's diverse work including the iconic magazine covers created for Opus (above top & middle) and the poster he designed for Hitchcock's Vertigo (above bottom). The collections on display are from the National Museum in Poznan, the Museum Art in Łódź and the private collection of Cezary Pieczyński.

See other posts about Roman Cieślewicz here and here.

Images copyright Roman Cieślewicz from 'Roman Cieślewicz: Master of Graphic Design' by Margo Rouard-Snowman. Published by Thames & Hudson Ltd. London, 1993.
Quotation from the Polish Cultural Institute.

Charley Harper at Castor + Pollux

The Charley Harper private view at Castor + Pollux on Friday night was great, the vintage prints looked fantastic framed and mounted up together and I noticed lots of red dots, so if you want one I would get down there sharpish. We are now the proud owners of the Trumpeter Swan (above) which I absolutely love and can't wait for the exhibition to end so we can bring it home (huge thanks Mike)! From memory the following were still available:

As well as the vintage prints on display they also have a selection of limited edition giclee prints and few of the posters Harper designed towards the end of his career (below) which are huge and great value for money at £35-45 unframed or mounted on board for an additional £30.