Sunday, July 31, 2011

Sunday Safari - House of Birds

 Joseph Cornell, Untitled (The Hotel Eden), 1945





 Frank Chimero, Arkansas



 Mariachininha, Decorating the house


Irene Shoch, illustration for Mireille Mésange

 Robert Strobridge, illustration from The Sparrow finds a Home, 1967,
Amy Ruppel, Vacation Home print at poster cabaret



Valerio Doval, Haunted Houses

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Ant Adventures



This sweet and funny short about the travels and encounters of a little lost ant 
was created by the master of Russian animation Eduard Nazarov in 1983.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Sunday Safari - Black & White Sea






 Woodcut by Bold for Stuff and Nonsense by Walter de la Mare, 1927, thanks to 50 Watts


Minako Kawauchi, Sea Bream







Helle Jorgensen, Cephalopod

 Farshid Mesghali, illustration from Little Black Fish, 1968




Christian Montenegro, illustration from The Creation




Saturday, July 23, 2011

Russian Riddles



I photographed this lovely folk style book in the Russian booth at the Bologna Book Fair 
last April, but didn't feel like posting it because I didn't have any info about it.
Finally, thanks to a cyrillic decoder and Google Translator, the mystery is solved!
Titled White hare, where have you run? (thanks to quete and reset for the correct
 translationand illustrated by Karinna Germanovna Pretro, it's a compilation
of traditional songs, nursery rhymes, riddles, tongue twisters and lullabies.










(Now, if only I could find a bit of information about the illustrator...) 
Update: this info is now available in the comments to this post.
Many thanks to Maria, quete and Irina for the data and links!



Thursday, July 21, 2011

Pino's Playthings




Pino Pascali was an important Italian artist and sculptor (I'll explore this side of his work 
in a future post) who also worked extensively in advertising. He was born in Bari in 1936
 and moved to Rome in 1955 to study at the Academy of Art. In 1958 he started a long 
and fruitful collaboration with the animator and producer Sandro Lodolo,
 which ended abruptly when Pascali died in an accident at the age of 32. 

These were the years when Carosellothe first advertising format introduced by Italian state television RAI
in 1957, was its most popular show. Some special rules contributed to make this daily evening show
 a family favorite especially loved by children. Firstly, in each advertising spot the sales pitch was confined 
to 30 seconds at the end a humorous sketch which lasted almost two minutes, and the product name
 could only be mentioned in this final segment. Moreover, each spot would go on air only once, forcing 
the creative teams working for the various companies to constantly create and produce new stories, 
most of which were conceived as episodes in a series. Lodolo and Pascali worked together 
on numerous animations for Carosello, including the one above for ice cream manufacturer Algida
It's one of the episodes written and designed by Pascali and centered on Salvador the Matador 
and his fights in the arena against a variety of crazy bulls such as Arista il Trasformista
 (unfortunately I haven't found any other videos of the innovative spots created by Pascali). 

Pascali was an exuberant and sensitive man who approached life and work with spontaneity and freedom, 
simplicity and endless imagination. He loved the creative process, and considered his work a form of play.
With the same childlike spirit he continuously experimented with new ideas and materials in his art 
and played games and tricks on people with his artist friends. Pascali was also a reckless driver, 
and his passion for speed came to a tragic ending when he crashed his motorcycle in a roman street.





Scottish terrier, 1963

Pascali was very fond of animals, and often featured them in his advertising works and sculptures. 
All the drawings and sketches in this post were created in the early sixties for various advertising and
 animation projects, and they were made available online thanks to the Pino Pascali Archive 
established by the Contemporary Art Gallery Frittelli in Firenze.







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