Arty Farty Friday ~ Robert Grossman's Caustic Covers, Caricatures & Cartoons

Robert Grossman, best known as brilliant political cartoonist and magazine cover artist, was born this day,
1 March, in 1940. He died around a year ago, in March 2018, aged 78.

His politically satirical cover illustrations for iconic American publications such as The Nation, TIME, and Rolling Stone are classics. For numerous examples just Google search Robert Grossman covers and cartoons, then click on "images". This one, from 2004, with adjustment of facial likenesses, could apply to 2020!

A once famous LP cover for comedy group The Firesign Theater by Robert Grossman used a little astrology.

For the 1970 comedy recording Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, Grossman painted a quartet of caricatures of The Firesign Theatre. The painting depicts the players as animal / human hybrids, with the animal portions signifying each member's Zodiacal sign (each was born under a Fire Sign).

(Wikipedia, link above).

Firesign Theatre material was conceived, written, and performed by its members Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor. The group's name stems from astrology, because all four were born under the three "fire signs": Aries (Austin), Leo (Proctor), and Sagittarius (Bergman and Ossman). Their popularity peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and ebbed in the Reagan Era. They experienced a revival and second wave of popularity in the 1990s and continued to write, record and perform until Bergman's death in 2012.

Astrologically, Robert Grossman himself had Sun and Mercury in Pisces, but he also had three planets (Jupiter, Venus and Saturn) in Aries, Moon in Sagittarius and Pluto in Leo - so had Firesign credentials aplenty himself.

An obituary from UK's The Independent is worth a look. It features this cartoon strip by Grossman (must have been one of his much later pieces):

For more, see Robert Grossman's website HERE.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Cliff McReynolds' Visionary Art

I discovered this artist from an album cover among husband's collection of LPs - this one:

"Nothing Will Be As It Was...Tomorrow"

From notes on the cover's reverse I discovered the artist's name: Cliff McReynolds. Research ensued, along with discovery of some of his other work.

Cliff McReynolds, born on 1 January 1933, is an American visionary painter from California. In the 1960s and 70s, he was part of a loosely associated group of California visionary painters. McReynolds' works are often on canvas measuring several square feet. Some of his paintings, including The Arrival or those from his La Jolla Pentych, are composed of complicated interlocking scenes with dozens of distinct elements. (Information from HERE.)

Natal chart is set for noon and San Diego, California - which, though likely not his time and place of birth, can still give some idea of where his choice of art style is reflected: for instance, Capricorn Sun is in exact harmonious trine to Neptune, planet of visions and imagination; while Venus (planet of the arts) and Mercury (communication) in Sagittarius trine Uranus (the unusual) in Aries. Planetary emphasis in Virgo signifies his detail-oriented nature - his artwork, from what little we can glean from images online, appears to be finely, painstakingly detailed.

The Artist's Statement (in full HERE), is a good read.
Snip:

Originality was the key to a style of painting recognizably one's own and a personal style was like a prize which would only be awarded to the most sensitive, tenacious, and industrious among us. I think it was Marcel Duchamp who said, "I force myself to contradict myself so that I can avoid conforming to my own taste" For some of us, this idea became a part of the process of creating an abstract expressionist painting. In practice it worked this way: the artist would stand before his work in progress wondering what to do next (and what to do next was the everlasting dilemma). When he finally decided to act, then that would become the thing that he would not do. Imagine patting your head and rubbing your stomach while driving your car blindfolded and you will have the idea.

Like most schizophrenics, criminals or artists, I'm out of step. First century reverence makes more sense to me than twentieth century sophistication. I see imagination as a better source of art than experience. Originality seems a natural byproduct of an artist's progress toward his potential, rather than a goal.

Since my goal is art locked into the real universe, I believe that conforming to universal creative principles offers a better chance for success than ignoring or opposing them. I'm not interested in "self-expression" or "personal truth" but in truth itself, particularly in its aesthetic and spiritual dimensions. In fact I define art as the creative expression of truth.

Examples of his work:

 The Arrival

 The Arrival (detail)

 The Creation. (With Natural Phenomena)

 Life (central piece of the La Jolla Pentych)

Snow Geese with Peacock -  note-card design for Pomegranate

 Landscape with Bird and Boy

 Landscape with Grenade (has also been used as an album cover)

Arty Farty Friday ~ Jim Warren

The name Jim Warren wasn't familiar to me, but while surfing TV channels, looking for something to watch, a piece of artwork painted on an old wooden door drew my attention. The owner was attempting to sell the piece to a pawn shop owner in the TV series Pawn Stars. The door was decorated with a portrait of Jim Morrison and several associated images, and signed "Jim Warren". An expert was in the midst of assisting the store owner to value the piece. He confirmed that it was genuine Jim Warren artwork, and the artist's original work these days commands high prices, at least in the tens+ of thousands of dollars. Those prices proved too rich for the store owner who declined to offer anything near what he seller was asking.


Later I did a bit of research on Jim Warren and his art.

Jim Warren was born on 24 November 1949 in Long Beach, California, is now based mainly in Florida. Amazingly, he is a self-taught artist, apart from his school art classes, and years of studying the work of famous artists exhibited in museums. He first became known for his artwork on record album covers, book covers, movie posters, and some portraits of well-known personalities. His album cover for Bob Seger's hit album Against the Wind won a Grammy Award in 1980 - he had arrived!

Warren works in oils using paintbrushes on stretched canvas. He eschews the airbrush beloved by so many of his contemporaries. His style has been described as "somewhere between Dali and Rockwell". I'd add to that: a touch of Magritte and a faint echo of Michael Parkes...surrealistic fantasy; rather surprisingly too, I also see in some of his work, a whisper of Thomas Kincade. Put that all together, though, and his paintings become pure Jim Warren.

In more recent years Warren has been concentrating on promoting environmental themes and issues, emphasising harmony and co-existence between man and nature. Warren's 1991 painting of Earth, Love It or Lose It was featured on posters, magazines, billboards, and T-shirts; and became an iconic visual representation of the global environmental movement. The original painting named "Oops" features a little girl standing on an image of the world that was also a balloon. The balloon had opened at the tie and looked to be whisking across the sky. The little girl in both he 1990 and 1991 depiction was Jim's niece Cristin. The original "Oops" had been painted from a photo Jim had taken when Cristin was about two years old looking at a bug. This was also made into posters and shirts and became the 1990 Earth Day poster for Nevada.

His book, The Art of Jim Warren: An American Original, was published in 1997, followed by Painted Worlds in 2002. A third book is scheduled to be released soon.

Jim Warren has said, "Each person sees something different in my paintings that relates specifically to them. That, to me is what art is all about."

His official website: http://jimwarren.com/

I don't intend to post a natal chart for Jim Warren, as he's still very much around, and would probably see it as an intrusion into his privacy. I'll just note that his Sun is in the very early degrees of philosophical Sagittarius and, depending on his exact time of birth, Moon would be either in early Aquarius or late Capricorn - I'd bet on early Aquarius, in sextile to his natal Sun; if this should be nearly correct, the sextile would, via two quincunx aspects, link to Uranus at the Yod's apex. Very appropriate!

This YouTube video showing some of his paintings is one of several available; lots of his work is featured on his own website, linked above, and on various other websites, easily found via Google.

Arty Farty Friday ~~ Roger Dean & Album Art

Album covers from the days of long-playing records (the 33rpm vinyl jobs) are a lost art form, along with index cards, paper files, accounting ledgers, blotters and the like. Modern man wouldn't count files and ledgers as art forms but for me, in their own sweet way, they are. Things of the past, things one could hold, appreciate, feel. They are fondly remembered.





Which brings me to an artist celebrating his birthday today, 31 August: Roger Dean. I have to admit I was unfamiliar with the artist's name, but do recognise his work, once pointed in the right direction.




Dean's father's army career meant that he and the family spent much of his childhood abroad, in Cyprus, Greece and Hong Kong. His family settled back in England in 1957, when Dean enrolled in the Canterbury School of Art. By 1968 he had graduated from the Royal College of Art, with credentials in design and architecture as well in painting. One of his designs, the sea urchin chair, was featured in the movie A Clockwork Orange.

Roger Dean's work really began to be noticed, though, around 1971 when he embarked on paintings and design work for use on album covers for then famous rock bands. Much of the artwork he produced then has since become iconic in its genre.

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A wee bit of astrology ~~~

Roger Dean was born in Ashford, Kent on 21 August 1944. His time of birth isn't available, the chart is set for 12 noon. Unless born before 7:00 AM Moon would have been in early Aquarius; otherwise in late Capricorn.



That's quite a striking chart! A lot of Virgo: Sun/Jupiter, Mercury, Venus all in the sign of the perfectionist, with Mars conjunct creative Neptune in Libra, almost certainly in harmonious trine to natal Moon, which I'm betting was in early Aquarius bearing in mind the artist's attraction to futuristic-cum-fantasy subject matter.
Dean, along with many of his generation, has a Grand Trine in his natal chart linking the creative Neptune/Uranus trine to a personal planet - in his case, natal Moon.