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“I definitely prefer the four-horned cow to the one having only two horns” – Alfred Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959), 1911 In Alfred Kubin’s bizarre and horrific illustrations, humans appear as skeletal, ghost-like creatures or hideously deformed things. They share surreal and hellish landscapes with monsters, vermin and peculiar animals. His … Continue reading "Terrible Visions of Death And Evil on Alfred Kubin’s Journey Back To The Womb" The post Terrible Visions of Death And Evil on Alfred Kubin’s Journey Back To The Womb appeared first on Flashbak.
German artist Evelyn Bracklow’s porcelain cups, saucers, teapots and dinner service is covered in ants. On some she’s painted a piece of food and then had her hand-painted black ants congregate around it. The effect is fascinating stuff and unsettling. We know that ants exist in abundance, but we don’t want to encounter one on … Continue reading "Painted Ants Scurry Over Vintage Porcelain by Evelyn Bracklow" The post Painted Ants Scurry Over Vintage Porcelain by Evelyn Bracklow appeared first on Flashbak.
In 2020, David Gallagher, who runs SF Memory, opened a cabinet found abandoned in San Francisco’s Mission District, somewhere around Tiffany and Duncan streets. Inside were 920 Kodachrome slides by a then unknown photographer capturing life in the city throughout the 1960s. They show us the construction of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) … Continue reading "The Mystery Remains: Found Kodachrome Photos From 1960s San Francisco" The post The Mystery Remains: Found Kodachrome Photos From 1960s San Francisco appeared first on Flashbak.
Flowers speak a language we understand. They tell us of time and its passing. They speak of life and death, enduring, waiting and survival. They speak of hope and renewal. “To be a flower,” Emily Dickinson wrote in Bloom, a poem, “is profound Responsibility”. We’re thinking of flowers as we look at this album from … Continue reading "The Life of Flowers In Vintage Found Photographs" The post The Life of Flowers In Vintage Found Photographs appeared first on Flashbak.
In 1994, the graffiti on the wall that ran along the Riverside Path in London’s Thamesmead told everyone that “GOLDFISH ARE WANKERS”. We’ve seen “LESBIAN TURDS“, learned that “Cats like plain Crisps” and that you can “FREE KUWAIT WITH TIGER TOKENS“, but this is the first fish-themed graffiti we’ve seen. Peter Marshall captured London … Continue reading "‘Goldfish Are Wankers’: London Graffiti, 1984-1994" The post ‘Goldfish Are Wankers’: London Graffiti, 1984-1994 appeared first on Flashbak.
More in history
Fireside this week! I am still a bit behind after attending the annual meeting of the Society for Military History – conferences always leave me a bit tired and slow to get back to writing, even as they also stimulate my thinking – so the conclusion of our look at Rings of Power must wait … Continue reading Fireside Friday, April 4, 2025 →
A nice treat today as Caroline goes to the Moon! This was a popular French fictional series but I had not been able to find the one about the Moon trip until recently. The illustrations are beautiful and full color. Well worth examining each one for its details. Pierre Probst (1913-2007 ) introduced Caroline and her feisty animal friends to the French public in 1952, and added to the series for a decade. He created Caroline, based on his tomboyish daughter Simone. The illustrations are charming, full color, and with wonderful two-page spreads with great comic details. Caroline' is about seven years old, and has blonde hair with pigtails. She lives by herself among a band of friends - the dogs Bobby and Rusty, the cats Puff and Inky, the bear Bruno, a lion and a panther. Pierre Probst's greatest gift was for showing the human emotions on the faces of Caroline's animal friends, and his real daughter Simone can remember her father drawing from a mirror as he himself performed the grimaces and guffaws that he wanted to convey. Enjoy the adventure. (Sorry that some of the spreads get edges cut off.) Probst, Pierre. Caroline Sur La Lune (Caroline on the Moon). Paris: Grands Albums Hachette. (30 p.) 1965. I like Caroline's and her animal friends' faces as they undergo extra "G's" A really nice detailed illustration of approaching the Moon. I enjoy "fighting off" the meteors with tennis rackets.
In September 1980, fearful of the fiery Islamic revolution in neighboring Iran and taking advantage of the resulting chaos (including Western sanctions), Iraq invaded. At the time, Iraq was flush with cash thanks to high oil prices resulting from the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. Taking Iran’s oil fields would drastically increase Iraq’s oil export […]
Capitalism today is in chains, allowed to perform many social functions, but held back from realizing its full potential.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) is home to one of the world’s most spectacular collections of art, sculpture, and artifacts. The museum offers a wide array of exhibits spread across multiple galleries, from a fully reconstructed Egyptian temple to mosaics and sculptures from Ancient Rome. However, with so many rooms, galleries, […]
