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The Life of Flowers In Vintage Found Photographs Flowers speak a language we understand. They tell us of time and its passing. They speak of life and...
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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...
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‘Goldfish Are Wankers’: London Graffiti, 1984-1994 In 1994, the graffiti on the wall that ran along the Riverside Path in London’s Thamesmead told...
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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...
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Vintage Architectural Stationery Vignettes The images below are from Columbia University’s collection of commercial stationery, featuring...
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The images below are from Columbia University’s collection of commercial stationery, featuring architectural illustrations and gorgeous typography for factories, warehouses, mines, offices, stores, banks and hotels. Industries in this album of architectural stationery vignettes...
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Sex In A Japanese Love Hotel “These venues have a very ‘talkative’ quality visually – they‘re expressive in design, reflecting...
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“These venues have a very ‘talkative’ quality visually – they‘re expressive in design, reflecting aspects of local culture, values, and even fantasies” – François Prost, Love Hotels     There are about 37,000 Love Hotels in Japan. Sex on the clock in a rented room is big business...
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15 Signs of the Last Judgement and End of Days: 1450 – 1470 The Livre de la vigne nostre Seigneur is an anonymous illustrated treatise on the Antichrist, Last...
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The Livre de la vigne nostre Seigneur is an anonymous illustrated treatise on the Antichrist, Last Judgement, Hell, Heaven, Christ and Antichrist. It features 15 illustrations that mark the End of Days. What makes the series particularly interesting is its lack of human figures...
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Ibiza Undressed – Uninhibited Clubbing in the 1980s (NSFW) “Happiness isn’t forever. We were happy and we didn’t know it.” – Alex Maspon on Ibiza in the 1980s...
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“Happiness isn’t forever. We were happy and we didn’t know it.” – Alex Maspon on Ibiza in the 1980s     In these straightened times of polarised debate, herd mentality, religious fundamentalism and social conformity we need Oriol Maspons’ pictures of 1980s Ibiza. The Spanish...
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Blade Runner – Starring Divine and Grace Jones, 1982 ” All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I...
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” All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.” – Deckard, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner,1982     In another world, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) was …...
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More Glorious Colour Photographs of London in 1972 It’s been a while since we shared pictures of someone’s trip to London in 1972. Here are more from...
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It’s been a while since we shared pictures of someone’s trip to London in 1972. Here are more from the series. All we know about these great photos is that they were more than likely taken by an American tourist. They are from the collection of Glen F, who notes: I’ve found that...
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Glasgow 1978 – An Erotic Odyssey On The Way To The Job Centre Architect James Miller designed an entertainment complex in Glasgow’s Renfield Street for Miss...
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Architect James Miller designed an entertainment complex in Glasgow’s Renfield Street for Miss Catherine Cranston (1849–1934), better known as the owner of famous tea rooms, in 1916. Cranston’s Cinema De Luxe occupied the third floor of the six storey building. The cinema was...
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US Atlas for the Blind, 1837 The 1837 Atlas of the United States Printed for the Use of the Blind was made to help blind children...
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The 1837 Atlas of the United States Printed for the Use of the Blind was made to help blind children visualise geography. Supplied to children at the New England Institute for the Education of the Blind in Boston this extraordinary atlas features heavy paper embossed with...
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Free Cannabis on Speakers Corner, September 2000 “I believe I have the birthright to cultivate and use the cannabis plant for all its uses. I have...
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“I believe I have the birthright to cultivate and use the cannabis plant for all its uses. I have used all the substances listed, with the possible exception of the MDMA (ecstasy), in a shamanic way.” – Mr Free Cannabis, Taunton Crown Court  September 2000   On 28, September,...
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A Day Out in London on the 14th November 1987 On 14 November 1987, Peter Hancox, was on a trip to London. “The photos I took on that day include...
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On 14 November 1987, Peter Hancox, was on a trip to London. “The photos I took on that day include some of the exhibits at Madame Tussaud’s and show how famous people 38 years ago are maybe a little forgotten now or have been ‘melted down’,” says Peter. He’s not wrong. It’s fun...
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The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel, 1565 “The great familiarity I had with the late François Rabelais (dear Reader), has moved and even...
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“The great familiarity I had with the late François Rabelais (dear Reader), has moved and even compelled me to bring to light the last of his work, the drolatic dreams of the very excellent and wonderful Patagruel, a man very famous for his heroic deeds on which the more than...
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Man Ray’s Mathematics Objects (1934-36) The collection of 19th-century three-dimensional models of algebraic and differential equations at...
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The collection of 19th-century three-dimensional models of algebraic and differential equations at the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris made a great impression on Surrealist artists.     When German artist Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) saw a series of 19th Century wood,...
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Strangely Familiar: Peter Mitchell Paints The Everyday In Colour Film “I had always believed a photograph could be as powerful as a painting.” – Peter Mitchell     Peter...
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“I had always believed a photograph could be as powerful as a painting.” – Peter Mitchell     Peter Mitchell allows us to imagine the stories between his  colour photographer of 1970s and 80s England, particularly the northern city of Leeds he calls home. A self-described “man of...
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Why The BBC Wanted To Keep George Orwell Off The Radio “I am quite seriously worried about the situation and about the wisdom of our keeping Orwell...
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“I am quite seriously worried about the situation and about the wisdom of our keeping Orwell personally on the air.” – the BBC controller outlines his reasons for keeping George Orwell off the air     In his his lifetime, George Orwell (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was thought...
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Honoré Daumier, Portraits des Célébrités du Juste-Milieu At the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, you can see these sculptured portraits of celebrities by French artist...
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At the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, you can see these sculptured portraits of celebrities by French artist Honoré Daumier (February 26, 1808 – February 10 or 11, 1879). Created between 1832 and 1835, Les Célébrités du Juste-Milieu (The Celebrities of the Golden Mean) terracotta look...
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René Magritte’s Art Deco Posters and Music Covers Belgian painter René Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) is best known for his Surrealist...
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Belgian painter René Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) is best known for his Surrealist art. But before he relocated from Brussels to Paris in 1927 and began hanging out with André Breton (19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) and other Surrealists, Magritte worked as...
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23 Before And After Vintage Snapshots “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” — Mark Twain    ...
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“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” — Mark Twain     Take a moment to look at the photo above. We don’t know Maureen. She’s the subject of a pair of ‘BEFORE’ and AFTER’ polaroids from Robert E Jackson’s astounding archive of snapshots....
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Mystery, God And The Wonder of Death: Cristoforo de Predis’ Illuminated Visions “He commanded and they were created.” – Psalm 33     Cristoforo de Predis (1440-1486) painted his...
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“He commanded and they were created.” – Psalm 33     Cristoforo de Predis (1440-1486) painted his visions of the final judgement in the late 15th Century. We see fish above the sea, the sun and moon dying, blood dripping from trees and winged demons dropping naked, fragile...
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Harold Fisk Maps the History of the Mississippi River, 1944 In 1944, Harold Fisk was a geologist and cartographer working for the US Army Corps of Engineers...
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In 1944, Harold Fisk was a geologist and cartographer working for the US Army Corps of Engineers when he made these 15 maps to illustrate the government’s “Geological Investigation of the Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River”. Fisk’s ingenious maps shows a different...
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Johann Gottlob von Kurr’s The Mineral Kingdom, 1859 Johann Gottlob von Kurr (1798-1870) was professor of mineralogy and botany at the Stuttgart...
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Johann Gottlob von Kurr (1798-1870) was professor of mineralogy and botany at the Stuttgart Polytechnic Institute when in 1858 he published Das Mineralreich in Bildern. The work was delivered in two sections. The first is an introduction including topics such as the formation of...
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The Making of The Conversation – An Interview with Francis Ford Coppola, 1974 In 1966, Francis Ford Coppola was working as a scriptwriter when he talked with fellow American...
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In 1966, Francis Ford Coppola was working as a scriptwriter when he talked with fellow American director Irvin Kershner (born Isadore Kershner (April 29, 1923 – November 27, 2010)) about spy movies. The time was ripe with espionage plots. The James Bond films were hugely popular...
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Dear Me: Letters by Famous Faces to Their Teenage Selves Alun CummingAmongst letters to their 16-year-old selves, writer Stephen King advises against taking...
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Alun CummingAmongst letters to their 16-year-old selves, writer Stephen King advises against taking recreational drugs. Musician Alice Cooper has words of romance –  “Trashy girls are exciting for about five minutes… Keep your eye out for a good-lookin’ church girl. Then you’ll...
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Notes on the Sexual Habits of the ‘Astonishingly Depraved’ Adélie Penguin, 1911 “There seems to be no crime too low for these Penguins” – Dr. George Murray Levick, notes on the...
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“There seems to be no crime too low for these Penguins” – Dr. George Murray Levick, notes on the sexual habits of the Adélie penguin, Antarctica, 1911     Back in 1911, a select group of readers learned of the “astonishing depravity” and “hooligan males” of the Adélie penguins...
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Living The Outlaw Life in Suburban America: ‘Once the needle goes in, it never comes out’ ‘There weren’t supposed to be drugs back then. It was supposed to be mom’s apple pie and white...
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‘There weren’t supposed to be drugs back then. It was supposed to be mom’s apple pie and white picket fences.” – Larry Clark on drugs, outsiders and “a record of his secret teenage life.” in suburban America     When director and photographer Larry Clark (born January 19, 1943) ...
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The Talking Parrot Tells All: When Madame Tussaud’s Caught Fire, 1925 “Criminals represented in the Chamber of Horrors, however, will have no feelings in the matter, as...
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“Criminals represented in the Chamber of Horrors, however, will have no feelings in the matter, as they are all dead” – Report on the fire as Madame Tussaud’s, London 18 March 1925   The fire that tore threw London attraction Madame Tussaud’s on 18 March 1925 melted the famous...
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Christy Rupp: Rat Patrol in New York City, 1979 In 1979, American artist Christy Rupp (born 1949) created a street poster of a prowling, life-sized...
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In 1979, American artist Christy Rupp (born 1949) created a street poster of a prowling, life-sized rat. With a keen interest in animal behaviour and habitat, Rupp’s popster coincided with a three-week strike by NYC sanitation workers. As the rubbish bags piled up on the city’s...
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The International Atlas of Clouds and of States of the Sky by the Office National Météorologique,... “Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe Rain may fall, and wind may blow...
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“Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe Rain may fall, and wind may blow And many miles be still to go But under a tall tree will I lie And let the clouds go sailing by” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring     … Continue reading "The...
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Cover Stars of The Face Magazine – Photos 1980 – 2004 There’s a new exhibition of The Face, the glossy British magazine that through the 80s and 90s was...
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There’s a new exhibition of The Face, the glossy British magazine that through the 80s and 90s was the lightning rod of the progress of popular culture and styled a generation. The Face was well produced, designed and written monthly with music at its core but an expanded focus...
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Marvels of the Universe, 1912 – Curious Scientific Illustrations From A Compendium of Life First published in 1912, readers could learn all things about everything in Marvels of the Universe...
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First published in 1912, readers could learn all things about everything in Marvels of the Universe : a popular work on the marvels of the heavens, the earth, plant life, animal life, the mighty deep. It was published as a periodical in London by Hutchinson and Company, founded...
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Grant Wood: America The Sensual Grant Wood’s most famous picture is American Gothic (1930), that painting stepped in storytelling...
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Grant Wood’s most famous picture is American Gothic (1930), that painting stepped in storytelling and subversive wit of two farmers looking lean, staid and weather-beaten as they stand guard before their lean and staid home. But there’s lot more to him that than hit. Wood was a...
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The Art of Erotic Ex Libris (NSFW) Ex Libris is a Latin phrase that translates as “from the books”. Also known as bookplates, Ex Libris...
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Ex Libris is a Latin phrase that translates as “from the books”. Also known as bookplates, Ex Libris were first used in Germany in the 15th Century. These designs are pasted into a book’s inside cover or endpaper as a sign of ownership. The first books were highly valuable and...
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Illustrations from Lorenz Oken’s Atlas of Living Things, 1833-1834 These wonderful illustrations of a broad variety of fora fauna are from German naturalist Lorenz...
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These wonderful illustrations of a broad variety of fora fauna are from German naturalist Lorenz Oken’s huge atlas of living things, the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte für alle Stände atlas (1833-1834) (General natural history for all classes). Published over seven instalments, its...
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Painted Backgrounds for Early 20th Century Photographers, 1908 Before image filters and digital backdrops added depth and interest to photographs, placing subjects...
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Before image filters and digital backdrops added depth and interest to photographs, placing subjects in exquisite settings, there were hand-painted backgrounds for photography studios. Beginning in the mid-1800s, decorative backgrounds worked at the intersection of traditional...
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The Brilliant Paper Bag Hats Made by Self-Taught Artist moses of Hawaii Born Murray Odessky on October 16, 1931, the artist who would eventually change his name to “moses”...
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Born Murray Odessky on October 16, 1931, the artist who would eventually change his name to “moses” moved to the Big Island of Hawaii and began to create 255 brilliant paper bag hats – sculptures that he donated to the Mingei Museum in San Diego, CA. Until he died in 2015, moses...
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Émile-Allain Séguy’s Insectes, 1925 – A Hymn To Nature In 20 Beautiful Illustrated Plates “Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no...
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“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible...
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Magic Reality: The Eyes of Arthur Tress – in Pictures “A photographer could be considered a kind of magician. As a trained observer he can foretell the...
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“A photographer could be considered a kind of magician. As a trained observer he can foretell the potential movements of his subjects and perhaps even by some mental intimidation… actually cause them to happen.” – Arthur Tress   Arthur Tress (Nov. 24, 1940- ) was born in...
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Malice In Wonderland – the Trippy Cartoon Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Story, 1982 “These days, it’s, ‘Dude, what the fuck is that shit?’ Whereas back then, it was, ‘You are...
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“These days, it’s, ‘Dude, what the fuck is that shit?’ Whereas back then, it was, ‘You are exploiting women, you filthy sexist pig!'” – Vince Collins on his shot animation Malice In Wonderland     When Vince Collins made Malice in Wonderland in 1982, his hallucinatory,...
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The Will Eisner M-16 U.S. Army Rifle Maintenance Booklet, 1968 The M-16 U.S. Army Rifle Maintenance Booklet was distributed to every U.S. soldier from 1968-1972...
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The M-16 U.S. Army Rifle Maintenance Booklet was distributed to every U.S. soldier from 1968-1972 during the Vietnam war. Originally sealed in plastic to accommodate weather concerns, and for jungle distribution, the 32 page M-16 booklet featured art by Will Eisner Studios. The...
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All Aboard for A Bus Tour of 1970s England “As a photographer, my principal subject was – and remains – the British people, I’m not interested...
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“As a photographer, my principal subject was – and remains – the British people, I’m not interested in celebrities, just ordinary folk” – Daniel Meadows   In 1973, Daniel Meadows toured Britain in his 1948 Leyland Titan PD1 double-decker bus. He met he met circus performers,...
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The Seven Deadly Sins Under Death’s Dominion by James Ensor, 1904 “…the eternal black night, death under the colourless earth” – James Ensor on his dread of death    ...
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“…the eternal black night, death under the colourless earth” – James Ensor on his dread of death     Belgian painter and printmaker James Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) etched his Seven Deadly Sins in 1904. To hammer home the message of human foolishness, malice and the...
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Loving Couples Posing For Studio Portraits in the 1970s Before the ubiquitous smart phone and achieving physical perfection through fillers and filters,...
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Before the ubiquitous smart phone and achieving physical perfection through fillers and filters, anyone seeking a professional look hired a studio photographer. These portraits of couples from the 1970s are a release from all that narcissism. The lovers paid for these pictures...
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Finding Ourselves on Ward 81, 1976 “They are the women we might have been or one day become” – Ward 81 by Dr Karen Jacobs and Mary Mark...
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“They are the women we might have been or one day become” – Ward 81 by Dr Karen Jacobs and Mary Mark Ellen   In 1976, photographer Mary Ellen Mark and her friend, the sociologist Dr. Karen Folger Jacobs, documented the lives of women living in the high-security, all-female wing...
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Andy Warhol’s Life After Death: Cards, Posters And Other Post-Warhol Ephemera Andy Warhol’s star shone brighter after his death on February 22, 1987. The artist succumbed to...
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Andy Warhol’s star shone brighter after his death on February 22, 1987. The artist succumbed to cardiac arrest while in hospital for gall bladder surgery. Prolific, talented and successful in life, much of Warhol’s work only came to light after his unexpected death, such as early...
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Manuel Orazi’s Occultist Magic Calendar Mil DCCCXCVI, 1895 This French occultist calendar illustrated in the Art Nouveau style by Italian artist and designer...
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This French occultist calendar illustrated in the Art Nouveau style by Italian artist and designer Manuel Orazi (1860 – 1934) was printed in an symbolic edition of 777 copies to commemorate magic for the coming year of 1896. Each double page uses the Christian calendar (name...
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The Sun by Frans Masereel, A Story Without Words – 1919 “One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives...
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“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light,” – James Baldwin, Nothing Personal      The Sun (1919) by Frans Masereel (1889–1972) opens with an artist resting his head on his desk beneath an open...
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How John Steinbeck Harnessed Desire and Self-Doubt To Write The Grapes of Wrath “This is the longest diary I ever kept. Not a diary of course but an attempt to map the actual...
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“This is the longest diary I ever kept. Not a diary of course but an attempt to map the actual working days and hours of a novel. If a day is skipped it will show glaringly on this record and there will be some reason given for the slip.” – John Steinbeck, Working Days, The …...
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Momoyogusa (A World of Things) by Kamisaka Sekka (1909-1910) Kamisaka Sekka (Japanese 1866 – 1942) produced his woodblock print masterpiece Momoyogusa (A World...
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Kamisaka Sekka (Japanese 1866 – 1942) produced his woodblock print masterpiece Momoyogusa (A World of Things) between 1909 and 1910. The three-volume set of 60 images, commissioned by the publishing firm Unsōdō of Kyoto, borrows its name from the eighth-century poetic text...
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People of London’s Maida Vale the 1970s and early 1980s Bristol Gardens runs between Formosa Street and Clifton Villas and in London’s Maida Vale. Artist...
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Bristol Gardens runs between Formosa Street and Clifton Villas and in London’s Maida Vale. Artist and photographer Sheila Burnett has not longed moved to the area when she began to take pictures of the people who lived and worked there.     In the 1970s, Sheila arrived in London...
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Watch The Alphabet, David Lynch’s horrific 1968 short, “There’s a connection between music, film, painting, writing, everything, you’re into, the more...
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“There’s a connection between music, film, painting, writing, everything, you’re into, the more they’re going to help each other” – David Lynch     David Lynch’s 1968 short The Alphabet was inspired by his first wife Peggy’s niece reciting her ABCs during a nightmare then waking...
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The Handwriting of 12 Famous Authors “My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.”...
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“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh   In The Handwriting of 12 Famous Authors we look at writers who communicated in long hand, and sometimes wrote their books in the same manner. For...
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Cynthia The Celebrity Mannequin (1932) Cynthia was a mannequin who looked remarkably human, in a sort of unusual way before extreme...
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Cynthia was a mannequin who looked remarkably human, in a sort of unusual way before extreme cosmetic surgery became a fashion choice. Created in 1932 by sculptor and retail display designer Lester Gaba (1907-1987) for Saks Fifth Avenue, New York, Cynthia caused a stir.     When...
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A Kodachrome Trip To Lord Howe Island in 1961 in 1961, a groud of freinds took a flight to Lord Howe Island, an irregularly crescent-shaped...
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in 1961, a groud of freinds took a flight to Lord Howe Island, an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. Many decades later the album of kodachrome photos they took were...
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Der Struwwelpeter: Heinrich Hoffmann’s Deadly Book For Naughty Children Just look at him! There he stands, With his nasty hair and hands. See! His nails are never cut; They...
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Just look at him! There he stands, With his nasty hair and hands. See! His nails are never cut; They are grim’d as black as soot; And the sloven, I declare, Never once has combed his hair; Anything to me is sweeter Than to see this Struwwelpeter. – Der Struwwelpeter (Shaggy-Peter...
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A Trip To Butlin’s In 1982 ‘Our true intent is all for your delight’… – Butlin’s holiday camp motto     Photographer Barry...
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‘Our true intent is all for your delight’… – Butlin’s holiday camp motto     Photographer Barry Lewis takes us on a holiday to Butlin’s Skegness in 1982. This was first ever Billy Butlin holiday camp. It opened at Skegness in 1936 – and still exists today. Lewis had worked for...
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Far Out Images from Johann Zahn’s Oculus Artificialis (1685) “A complete treatment of the construction and use of lensed optical instruments. Presented in three...
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“A complete treatment of the construction and use of lensed optical instruments. Presented in three fundamentals, that is, bases: the physical, the mathematical, and the practical or mechanical” – Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus sive Telescopium     The German student of light...
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Bertha Czegka: Skiing Bunnies And Other Satire Biography Bertha Czegka (July 30, 1880 – November 4, 1954) was a member of the “Association of...
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Biography Bertha Czegka (July 30, 1880 – November 4, 1954) was a member of the “Association of Visual Artists” in her native Austria. In the interwar period, the painter worked as an illustrator on children’s books. One highlight among her later works is a poster she created in...
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Travels in the Air, 1871 “The balloon was isolated, as if it were in a vacuum; beneath us stretches an immense abyss, above...
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“The balloon was isolated, as if it were in a vacuum; beneath us stretches an immense abyss, above the infinite expanse of sky” – James Glaisher, Travels In The Air, 1871      Travels in the Air tells the story of balloon travel since the first ‘aerostatic’ flight by the...
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From Window: A Photographer’s Obsession With His Wife And Freezing Time “I work and photograph while hoping to stop everything. In that sense, my work may be some kind of...
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“I work and photograph while hoping to stop everything. In that sense, my work may be some kind of revenge drama about living now.” – Masahisa Fukase     One morning in the summer of 1973, Masahisa Fukase (25 February 1934 – 9 June 2012) photographed his wife since 1964, Yoko...
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A Walk Around Leeds in The 1970s We’re shopping in 1970s Leeds as Eric Miles shows us around the city centre. We mooch past Austicks’...
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We’re shopping in 1970s Leeds as Eric Miles shows us around the city centre. We mooch past Austicks’ Bookshop, where as a teenager writer Alan Bennett worked part-time job. We pop into the County Arcade, walking amid the mahogany shop fronts, pink marble columns, and cast iron...
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Welcome To Holy Land USA: Inside America’s Jerusalem, 1980 “You can tell that Garry Winogrand was my hero. I learned so much from him about how to tell a story...
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“You can tell that Garry Winogrand was my hero. I learned so much from him about how to tell a story or a joke within a frame” – Lisa Barlow, Holy Land, USA     In 1980s, Lisa Barlow found Jerusalem in a turning off Connecticut’s Route 69. A huge cross on the roadside alerted …...
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Jean And Rose – A Paris Photo Love Story From 1929 In 1929, Jean, 20, was living on rue Clairault, Paris. He worked at a brokerage house on rue de la...
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In 1929, Jean, 20, was living on rue Clairault, Paris. He worked at a brokerage house on rue de la Grange Batelière. On December 11, Jean met Rose, 18, at the city’s Saint-Lazare metro station. She lived in the 15th arrondissement, and took classes in hairdressing at the École...
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Lightning Strikes: William Jennings’ Early Photographs of Elusive Electricity Anglo-American photographer William Jennings (1860–1946) is best known for his aerial pictures of...
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Anglo-American photographer William Jennings (1860–1946) is best known for his aerial pictures of his adopted city of Philadelphia and the aeronautical industry, and photographs of lightning. Setting out to prove “lightning bolts were not of the zig-zag form pictured by artists”,...
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Street Shots of New York City in 1978 “Every day was like being in a scene from a movie set in the city” – George Wright     In ‘New York...
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“Every day was like being in a scene from a movie set in the city” – George Wright     In ‘New York 1978’, British photographer George Wright shows us the city. Having trained as a graphic design at London’s Wimbledon School of Art in the early 1970s, Wright took a class taught...
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Historical Figures in Ridiculous Frippery: Ruff Love For Old Masters “If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you...
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“If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask… with nothing beneath it?” — Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes     Volker Hermes lampoons traditional...
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Views of Polar Regions: Watercolours By Queen Victoria’s Spy Illustrator Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith (26 December 1776  – 21 September 1859) was an...
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Illustrator Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith (26 December 1776  – 21 September 1859) was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, natural historian, soldier, explorer, writer and spy. That’s quite the package for a man who produced these drawings and...
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The Metamorphoses du Jour by JJ Grandville – 1829 Told in 73 coloured lithographs, Les Metamorphoses du Jour (1829) by French artist J.J. Gandville...
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Told in 73 coloured lithographs, Les Metamorphoses du Jour (1829) by French artist J.J. Gandville (born Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard; 1803-1847) is a satire on the bourgeois middle class of Parisian society in the Romantic period. Grandville’s characters have a human body and an...
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Leeds Kids the 1970s Self-styled ‘Luddite photographer” Eric Milese (“relatively recently gone digital – 2011”) named the...
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Self-styled ‘Luddite photographer” Eric Milese (“relatively recently gone digital – 2011”) named the picture below of kids ‘tobogganing’ down a dry, rocky slope in the northern English city of Leeds in the 1970s “The Cresta Run”. It is not the original Cresta Run, which is a...
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Bullshit Jobs: The Emptiness of Life In A Corporate Office “If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment,...
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“If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead   From faces...
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Mazes and Labyrinths: An Illustrated History (1922) “There is no route out of the maze. The maze shifts as you move through it, because it is alive.” –...
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“There is no route out of the maze. The maze shifts as you move through it, because it is alive.” – Philip K. Dick, VALIS     William H. Matthews leads us through his 1922 book Mazes and Labyrinths from his home in Ruislip in the English county of Middlesex. Compiled shortly...
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Harold Lloyd’s Amazing Christmas Tree For American actor Harold Lloyd (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) Christmas was the time to...
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For American actor Harold Lloyd (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) Christmas was the time to illuminate his home in Beverly Hills, California, with a magnificent tree. His granddaughter Suzanne says preparation began around Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November), when her...
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The Prostitutes’ Gaze: The Integrity of Mid-Century Sex Workers (NSFW) “I take photos to amuse myself” – Georges Thiry     Georges Thiry (1906 – 19940 took many pictures...
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“I take photos to amuse myself” – Georges Thiry     Georges Thiry (1906 – 19940 took many pictures in his native Belgium. From 1935 to 1975, he produced 40,000 negatives, almost as many contact sheets and a number of prints. His focus was on artist, chiefly Surrealists – René...
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The Mongrel Mob of Aotearoa New Zealand Photographer Jono Rotman’s arresting portraits of the Mongrel Mob of Aotearoa New Zealand show us...
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Photographer Jono Rotman’s arresting portraits of the Mongrel Mob of Aotearoa New Zealand show us the gang’s members in isolation. To avoid controlling the narrative and anaesthetising their spirit, while “still letting them retain their mystery and privacy”, Rotman took the...
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Glasgow in the 1980s: ‘From An Insider’s Point of View’ The Cranhill Arts Project has been collecting pictures of Glasgow, Scotland, to show the place ...
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The Cranhill Arts Project has been collecting pictures of Glasgow, Scotland, to show the place  “from an insider’s point of view”. Among its growing collection of Glasgow peoples’ photographs are these from the 1980s. All these snapshots have been labelled by the people who...
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The Months: Gardens of Art by Eugène Grasset In 1894, Eugène Grasset (25 May 1845 – 23 October 1917) received a commission from the French...
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In 1894, Eugène Grasset (25 May 1845 – 23 October 1917) received a commission from the French department store La Belle Jardinière to create 12 original works of art to be used as a calendar. Grasset’s woodcuts show women in fashionable costumes of the period each bearing a sign...
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42 Various Apocalyptic Scenes from Raphael’s Prophetic Messenger of Astrology (1827–61) The future is portrayed as dramatic, dangerous and dynamic in these visions published in the...
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The future is portrayed as dramatic, dangerous and dynamic in these visions published in the astrological magazine The Prophetic Messenger (1827 to 1861). More commonly known as Raphael’s Almanac in a nod to the Jewish archangel Raphael, the name was used a nom de plume by a...
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Hunter S Thompson Sets Fire To His Christmas Tree (1990) “’NO, HUNTER, NO! PLEASE, HUNTER, DON’T DO IT!'” – Hunter S. Thompson’s secretary Deborah Fuller...
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“’NO, HUNTER, NO! PLEASE, HUNTER, DON’T DO IT!'” – Hunter S. Thompson’s secretary Deborah Fuller before the writer torched his Christmas Tree     In January 1990, Sam Allis was on assignment for TIME magazine at writer Hunter S. Thompson’s (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) home...
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Have A Weird Christmas With Our Album Of Vintage Photo Oddities There’s a weird vibe running through this album of Christmas images. Harvested from Robert E....
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There’s a weird vibe running through this album of Christmas images. Harvested from Robert E. Jackson’s phenomenal collection of snapshots we see all kinds of unusual goings on. One Christmas card features a photo of the sender covered in rats; on another a man canoodles a...
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Eugene Von Bruenchenhein And His Wife Marie: A Love Story Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910–1983) was an American self-taught artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin....
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Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910–1983) was an American self-taught artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He left a vast archive of poetry, apocalyptic paintings, paintbrushes made with his wife’s hair, drawings, notebooks, audio tapes and hundreds of sculptures made from chicken bones,...
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Charles Green Shaw Cocktail Book of Rhymed Recipes (1930s) This great little book created by Charles Green Shaw in the 1930s features black and white...
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This great little book created by Charles Green Shaw in the 1930s features black and white illustrations and poetic recipes for various cocktails.   A leading figure in early American abstraction, Charles Green Shaw (May 1, 1892 – April 2, 1974) was an American painter, poet,...
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Charles Green Shaw’s Cocktail Book of Rhymed Recipes – c. 1920s “Art, since its inception has never depended upon realism. Why, one cannot help wondering, should it...
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“Art, since its inception has never depended upon realism. Why, one cannot help wondering, should it begin now? – Charles Green Shaw     This great little book created by Charles Green Shaw (May 1, 1892 – April 2, 1974) in the late 1920s or early 1930s (given the styling, it’s a...
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48 Hours In The Life of Andy Warhol, 1981 In spring of 1981, Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was setting up Myths, a...
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In spring of 1981, Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was setting up Myths, a portfolio of ten screenprints featuring fictional characters: The Star (Greta Garbo in her titular role in the 1931 film Mata Hari), Uncle Sam, The Witch (Margaret Hamilton, star of the...
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The Yule Goat: Photographs of Finland’s Nuuttipukki (1928) “Good Thomas brought Christmas and bad Nuutti took it away” – Finnish saying     On January 13, it’s...
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“Good Thomas brought Christmas and bad Nuutti took it away” – Finnish saying     On January 13, it’s Saint Knut’s day in Finland, which usually marks the end of the Christmas season. And the Nuuttipukki is at your door. The strange, goat-like creature is a thirsty man dressed in...
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John Martin’s Thrilling Illustrations for Paradise Lost (1827) “Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death...
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“Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe” – The opening lines to Paradise Lost by John Milton, illustrated by John Martin     John Milton’s (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) epic poem...
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Take Your Best Shot: Vintage Fairground Shooting Gallery Photos During their first participation in Paris-Photo in 2006, Lumiere des Roses shared a series of...
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During their first participation in Paris-Photo in 2006, Lumiere des Roses shared a series of fairground photos of men with guns at the shooting gallery. These snapshots were taken mostly in the 1920s and 1930s. Many looks remarkably fresh.   When I was just a baby my mama told...
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A Native’s Look At New York City In The 1980s Photographer Ronnie Ginnever shares more of her pictures New York, this time from the late 1970s and...
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Photographer Ronnie Ginnever shares more of her pictures New York, this time from the late 1970s and 1980s. You can see her great photos form the city in the 1960s here. Now she takes us back to the MUDD club, shows us Susann Dalton’s jacket for the Palladium and we buy some...
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New York City In The 1960s – A Photographer’s Love story For New Yorker Ronnie Ginnever, photography is a passion. “Fortunately, I was born in the city that...
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For New Yorker Ronnie Ginnever, photography is a passion. “Fortunately, I was born in the city that I love – New York City,” she says. ” On a good day, I move with the rhythms of the city and feel connected to its soul, spirit and people. The camera is the tool that allows me …...
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Visualising The Revolution: A Gallery of Posters from the Paris Uprising of May 1968 The politics of anarchists and communists was marked in hundreds of posters and flyers distributed...
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The politics of anarchists and communists was marked in hundreds of posters and flyers distributed around France in May 1968. The movement’s visual culture is key to its understanding.     These artworks and others like them were distributed in Paris and parts of the country amid...
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Meet Queen Cat, Secret Cat and Dunce Cat From Kittens and Cats: A First Reader (1911) The cat is regal in Kittens and Cats: A First Reader, 1911. The premise is simple: dress up your...
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The cat is regal in Kittens and Cats: A First Reader, 1911. The premise is simple: dress up your cat, take a picture and give it a witty caption. So we get to meet Hero Cat, Queen Cat, Party Cat and the very much of its time Dunce Cat. Author Eulalie Osgood Grover … Continue...
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Denim: The Fabric That Built America Denim was G.I. in wartime America. Originally used as heavy industry, utility workwear, these images...
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Denim was G.I. in wartime America. Originally used as heavy industry, utility workwear, these images mostly from the 1940s, show how the fabric became synonymous with American grit and productivity. The look was born in 18th Century Europe. Bleu de Gênes was the rough fabric...
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François Brunery’s Portraits of Pontificating, Pissed and Pouting Priests – c. 1890-1926 These photographs of priests and cardinals were taken by Francesco Bruneri, known as François...
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These photographs of priests and cardinals were taken by Francesco Bruneri, known as François Brunery (1849 – 1926), and used as the basis for his work as a painter of so-called “Cardinal Paintings”. His work depicting cardinals of the Catholic church in comical or embarrassing...
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Music of the Squares David Ramsay Hay and the Reinvention of Pythagorean Aesthetics Understanding the same laws to apply to both visual and aural beauty, David Ramsay Hay thought it...
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Understanding the same laws to apply to both visual and aural beauty, David Ramsay Hay thought it possible not only to analyse such visual wonders as the Parthenon in terms of music theory, but also to identify their corresponding musical harmonies and melodies, writes Carmel...
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The Beautiful Ludlow Typography Specimen Books c. 1958 Letters are beautiful. From specimens of chromatic woodtype to the groovy letter people and 16th...
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Letters are beautiful. From specimens of chromatic woodtype to the groovy letter people and 16th Century writing templates typography and calligraphy turn visual language into something beautiful. Beginning in the early 20th Century, the Ludlow Typograph Company (1906 to late...
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Arthur Rackham’s Fantastic Illustrations for The Tempest, 1926 Full fathom five thy father lies Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes:...
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Full fathom five thy father lies Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. – William Shakespeare, The Tempest, illustrated by Arthur Rackham 1926       Arthur...
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Rain Gods And Prayers to The Great Mystery: Portraits of Native Americans by Edward S. Curtis The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition, some knowledge of sacred...
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The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition, some knowledge of sacred rites possessed by no other… Consequently the information that is to be gathered, for the benefit of future generations, respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of...
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A Fabulous Collection of Antique Espresso Coffee Machines “I saw an ‘historical’ espresso machine for the first time in Arezzo in 1988 whilst visiting the...
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“I saw an ‘historical’ espresso machine for the first time in Arezzo in 1988 whilst visiting the oldest antiques market in Italy,” says collector Enrico Maltoni. His interest in antique espresso coffee makers became a labour of love means. He’s written extensively on the subject...
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Magnifying The Moment: Joni Sternbach’s Pictures of NYC Subway Passengers 1976–1981 “Part of the reason I was drawn to the Subway was that it was a perfect unchoreographed stage....
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“Part of the reason I was drawn to the Subway was that it was a perfect unchoreographed stage. Chance brought me together with a crowd of unknowns. It was up to me to parse them out and magnify the moment.” – Joni Sternbach on her pictures of NYC Subway Passengers in the 1970s  ...
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Marian Henel and His Perverted Rugs (NSFW) These large-scale rugs and self-portrait photographs were created by Marian Henel (1926-1993), who...
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These large-scale rugs and self-portrait photographs were created by Marian Henel (1926-1993), who spent 32 years as a patient of the Hospital for Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders in Branice, Poland. Admitted to the hospital’s Psychopathological Art Expression workshop in...
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Good Morning: The US Humor Magazine May 1919 – October 2021 Good Morning was an American political humor magazine, first published in May 1919. It was founded...
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Good Morning was an American political humor magazine, first published in May 1919. It was founded by Ellis O. Jones, a former associate editor of Life magazine and editor of Ladies’ Home Journal who once called for the US Army and Navy to be disbanded and went on to head the...
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Joe And Petunia: Stars of British Pubic Information Films (1968-1973) As with most British public information films (PIF) of the 1960s and 70s, the protagonists most...
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As with most British public information films (PIF) of the 1960s and 70s, the protagonists most likely die in the end. In the final instalment of the four-strong Joe and Petunia series, the British couple illustrate the dangers driving on bad tyres by driving into a tree.    ...
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Liberation Through Art: Flyers From New York’s Deitch Projects (1996 – 2010) “I also believe in the ability of art to enhance people’s lives, to liberate people’s lives, to act...
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“I also believe in the ability of art to enhance people’s lives, to liberate people’s lives, to act as a form of communication that transcends language to connect cultures together” – Jeffrey Deitch   Deitch Projects (1996 – 2010) changed our expectations around art. Named after...
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I’m Not a Look-Alike: François Brunelle’s Doppelgänger Photos doppelganger (n.) Wraith. literally: double-goer. Apparition of a living person, 1826 (from 1824 as...
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doppelganger (n.) Wraith. literally: double-goer. Apparition of a living person, 1826 (from 1824 as a German word in English). – OED     We are more alike than many of us hope. Photographer François Brunelle has spent years tracking down real-life doppelgängers — people who are...
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Postcards From The First Bauhaus Exhibition, 1923 To promote their first major exhibition, from 15 August to 30 September 1923, members of Germany’s...
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To promote their first major exhibition, from 15 August to 30 September 1923, members of Germany’s Bauhaus design school (der Bauhäusler) produced a set of postcards. Fellow lovers of collecting postcards (deltiology) understand the joy of holding these small picturesque moments...
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‘Leasure And Pleasure’: Window Shopping In 1980s Hull “When I started this project in 1977, Hull was in the throes of a massive redevelopment, with many...
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“When I started this project in 1977, Hull was in the throes of a massive redevelopment, with many inner city areas being bulldozed and instant slums being created on its outskirts. It seemed to have learnt nothing from the mistakes I had fought against during the previous decade...
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Riddle Me This: Question Marks In Vintage Photographs The Riddler: “Riddle me this! There are three men an a boat with a pack of cigarettes and no...
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The Riddler: “Riddle me this! There are three men an a boat with a pack of cigarettes and no matches. How did they manage to smoke?” Robin: “They threw one cigarette overboard and the boat became a cigarette lighter.” – The Question asked in Batman, 1966     The question mark...
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Erich Sokol For Playboy : Beautiful Women And Desperate Men (NSFW) “Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a...
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“Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves they have a better idea.” – John Ciardi, American poet (24 June 1916 – 30 March 1986)     Erich Sokol (31 March 1933 – 20 February 2003) was an Austrian illustrator and caricaturist best known...
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Snapshots of Cars On The Streets of London in the 1980s Peter Marshall  has taken us around London the 1980s, showing us graffiti in London, garages, sex...
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Peter Marshall  has taken us around London the 1980s, showing us graffiti in London, garages, sex shops, the West End, the East End and all parts between. Our focus here is in the cars on London’s roads in the 1980s. David Rostance took his pictures of London cars in the 1970s....
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Édouard Manet’s Illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’, 1875 The French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) introduced Edgar Allan Poe to French...
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The French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) introduced Edgar Allan Poe to French readers in 1847. Baudelaire, who saw Poe as a  “sacred soul” and something of a kindred spirit, translated many of the American writer’s words into French, including Poe’s poem The...
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12 Perfect Christmas Gifts From Dianne B, A Postcard Set from 1983 In 1983, photographer Peter Hujar (1934–87) created Twelve Perfect Christmas Gifts from Dianne B, a...
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In 1983, photographer Peter Hujar (1934–87) created Twelve Perfect Christmas Gifts from Dianne B, a mini-portfolio of 12 postcards. Eight are by Huja, plus four in colour by Neil Winokur and a sleeve by Ken Tisa. The postcards for maverick boutique owner Dianne Benson are lovely...
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Très Parisien: The Height Of French Chic 1920-1936 Très Parisien magazine sold itself as ‘chic’ and ‘elegant’. Published between 1920 and 1936 it...
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Très Parisien magazine sold itself as ‘chic’ and ‘elegant’. Published between 1920 and 1936 it presented creations by such couturiers as Louise Chéruit, Premet (best known for La Garconne, or The Flapper, a black dress with a white collar and cuffs introduced in 1923, Philip et...
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Stock Car Racing in 1972 In the early 1970s Henry Horenstein was taking photos of Speedway racers and fans at circuits in...
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In the early 1970s Henry Horenstein was taking photos of Speedway racers and fans at circuits in Seekonk, Massachusetts and Thompson, Connecticut. In 1972, women only raced each other, hair was grown out crewcuts slicked and draped, and TV-led big business had yet to move in....
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Quincy Jones Knew who Killed JFK and Saw the Pope’s ‘Pimp Shoes’ Quincy Jones knew who killed JFK,   Quincy Jones (March 14, 1933 – November 3, 2024) was one of the...
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Quincy Jones knew who killed JFK,   Quincy Jones (March 14, 1933 – November 3, 2024) was one of the world’s great musicians, producer and arranger. Best known for his smash hits with Michael Jackson, notable on the singer’s Thriller album, Jones won 28 Grammys in a career that...
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The Horny Monkey And A Nose Pick: Humorous Japanese Postcards by Kokkei Shinbun Sha – 1907-1909 The postcard above is over an ‘Amorous Monkey (Iroke zaru)’ attempting to undress a Japanese woman...
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The postcard above is over an ‘Amorous Monkey (Iroke zaru)’ attempting to undress a Japanese woman against her will. It’s an unusual tableaux. But then a lot about Japanese portrayals of sex is unfamiliar to all but the most adventurous Westerner (this Japanese sex guide and rope...
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16 Characters From A Film Never Made : Found Photos From The American Dream Film noir was coined in 1946 by the Italian-born French critic Nino Frank to describe the crime...
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Film noir was coined in 1946 by the Italian-born French critic Nino Frank to describe the crime thrillers laced with smoky cynicism, femme fatales and amoral ambiguity first produced by Hollywood in the 1940s. “These ‘dark’ films, these films noirs, no longer have anything in...
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Cars of Britain in the 1970s In the 1970s, David Rostance was photographing life in the UK. Inevitably, his pictures of...
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In the 1970s, David Rostance was photographing life in the UK. Inevitably, his pictures of Birmingham, The Black Country, London and Wolverhampton included cars. He took the above picture of the Ford Cortina Mk.1 parked on the roadside on 5th February 1978. It could be seen a...
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The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes “We’ve had so many books about how bad life is, maybe it’s time to have one showing how good it is”...
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“We’ve had so many books about how bad life is, maybe it’s time to have one showing how good it is” – Langston Hughes, The Sweet Flypaper of Life   The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), a collaboration between photographer Roy DeCarava and poet Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 –...
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A Tour of The Westwood Mall, Michigan, 1972 – 1984 We’re off to the Westwood Mall in Michigan in the 1970s and early 1980s. Most of the images here are...
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We’re off to the Westwood Mall in Michigan in the 1970s and early 1980s. Most of the images here are from the store’s opening on August 3 1972. We see shopper browsing for music in Recordland beneath a poster for the singer Cyndi Lauper, buying into the ‘grapefruit diet’, getting...
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President Johnson Orders Trousers from Joe Haggar – big enough for his ‘nuts’, ‘bunghole’ and knife On August 9 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973) ordered a...
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On August 9 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973) ordered a pair of trousers from Joe Haggar of the Haggar Clothing Co. based in Dallas, Texas. Not a shy man, Johnson was known for conducting official business whilst sat on the toilet and...
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Frank Stewart’s Portraits of The American Journey – A Story of Jazz And Justice “Just how somebody in photographs can treat black people with dignity. That I’d never seen before” –...
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“Just how somebody in photographs can treat black people with dignity. That I’d never seen before” – Frank Stewart   Frank Stewart (born 1949) was 14 when he took his trained his Kodak Brownie on the March on Washington for Jobs in Freedom, otherwise known as the Great March in...
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British Artist Finds An Incredible Album Of Found Photos Seeking vintage photographs as a source of inspiration for her work, British artist Emily Loveridge...
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Seeking vintage photographs as a source of inspiration for her work, British artist Emily Loveridge came upon this album of pictures. “I find images that resonate with me and then with that I try to bring their characters to life in my work,” she tells us. “I bought the slides on...
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Vanishing Point: New Zealand and Australia in the 80s and 90s “I approached my subjects with a sense of urgency. I believed that my world, as I knew it, was...
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“I approached my subjects with a sense of urgency. I believed that my world, as I knew it, was drawing to a close” – Kathryn McCool on life in New Zealand in the 1980s   Kathryn McCool was 18 when her father gave her a camera (a Ricoh SLR) he’d bought at auction. As Kathryn …...
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Trees at Night: Art Young’s Haunting Silhouettes, 1927 “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands...
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“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. As a man is, so he sees.” – William Blake     Arthur Henry Young – better known as Art Young (January 14, 1866–December 29, 1943) – saw humanity in the … Continue...
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A Day At New York City’s Off-Track Betting in 1982 In 2010, around 50 Off-Track Betting (OTB) parlors around New York City were shuttered. 1,000...
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In 2010, around 50 Off-Track Betting (OTB) parlors around New York City were shuttered. 1,000 employees lost their jobs. And another part of old New York went the way of the Automat and the Times Square peep show. The New York State Legislature enacted its first off-track betting...
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In the Night Garden: The Magical World of George Shiras George Shiras (1859 – 1942) began photographing in 1889, and was the first to use camera traps and...
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George Shiras (1859 – 1942) began photographing in 1889, and was the first to use camera traps and flash photography when photographing animals. Shiras, a lawyer who became a politician, borrowed a hunting technique he learned from the Ojibwa tribe called jacklighting, when fire...
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American Photographs: A Journey Down The Blue Highways, 1970s You see, I’ve been through The desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In...
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You see, I’ve been through The desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert you can remember your name ‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain – America, A Horse With No Name     We don’t know where British … Continue reading "American...
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Les Malheurs des immortels, 1922: Max Ernst and Paul Éluard’s Surreal Collaboration Misfortunes of the Immortals (Les Malheurs des immortels) is an early illustrated book by...
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Misfortunes of the Immortals (Les Malheurs des immortels) is an early illustrated book by German-American-French artist and founder of the Dada movement Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976). The book, which marks the beginning of his close friendship with French poet Paul...
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Roadside Relics of the USSR We’re back on the road though the former Soviet Union. This time our guide is French photographer...
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We’re back on the road though the former Soviet Union. This time our guide is French photographer Jason Guilbeau whose pointing out objects along the roadside, like tractors stuck atop poles, a pavement that turns into a jet’s trail, a tank on a plinth and more reminders of...
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A Woman I Once Knew: A Photographer Records Her Changing Body Over Five Decades “For old people, beauty doesn’t come free with the hormones, the way it does for the young… It has...
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“For old people, beauty doesn’t come free with the hormones, the way it does for the young… It has to do with who the person is” – Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination      Rosalind Fox Solomon got old. In …...
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Disappearing NYC: 1980s Store Fronts on New York’s Upper West Side “I moved to the Upper West Side in August, 1978, and immediately loved it with all my heart,” writes...
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“I moved to the Upper West Side in August, 1978, and immediately loved it with all my heart,” writes Stephen Harmon, a retired lawyer who first lived on New York City’s West End Avenue and 73rd street. “I am a photographer and set out to preserve it on film because I knew the...
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London at Night : Harold Burdekin Photographs A City Between Life And Eternity London looked better at night in these pictures by Harold Burdekin (1899-1944). With his...
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London looked better at night in these pictures by Harold Burdekin (1899-1944). With his collaborator John Morrison, Burdekin photographed London after dark for his book London Night, published in 1934. A year earlier, the photographer George Brassaï had published his influential...
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Max Thalmann: Passion, Cathedrals And America In Woodcuts Max Thalmann was a German Expressionist (1890 – 1944) who produced three main portfolios of black...
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Max Thalmann was a German Expressionist (1890 – 1944) who produced three main portfolios of black and white woodcut prints: Cathedral (Der Dom), Passion, and America in Woodcuts (Amerika im Holzschnitt). A bookbinder by trade having been trained as such under Henry Van De Velde...
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Winners of the Black and White Photo Awards 2024 What is it about black and white pictures that makes people look better? Is is because black and...
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What is it about black and white pictures that makes people look better? Is is because black and white hints and pulls you in whereas colour can distract and reflect? LensCulture magazine celebrates black and white photography with is 2024 Black and White awards. “The enduring...
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Ships Then Swans: Ian Macdonald’s Pictures of England’s Teesside in the 1970s and 80s The houseboats, blast furnaces and shipbuilding are gone. Ian Macdonald’s photographs are portraits...
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The houseboats, blast furnaces and shipbuilding are gone. Ian Macdonald’s photographs are portraits of times past. These pictures cover three of the photographer’s major bodies of work from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s: Greatham Creek; the Redcar blast furnace and Smith’s Dock...
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Katsushika Hokusai: Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) features the fabulous painting...
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Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) features the fabulous painting Under the Wave off Kanagawa, better known as the Great Wave. First published for the New Year of 1831, the ukiyo-e series of large, colour woodblock prints was, due its immense...
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This Won’t Change: The Joy Of Northern Soul In 1993, the Face magazine asked Elaine Constantine to photograph a Northern Soul night at London’s...
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In 1993, the Face magazine asked Elaine Constantine to photograph a Northern Soul night at London’s 100 Club. Recently moved to London from Manchester, Constantine knew the scene well, having danced at all-nighters a decade earlier. At first, things seemed different. The crowd...
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Trees are Sanctuaries: Wandering – Notes and Sketches by Hermann Hesse, 1920 “For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers” – Herman Hesse, Wandering: Notes and...
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“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers” – Herman Hesse, Wandering: Notes and Sketches     Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877–August 9, 1962) speaks of the search for truth and that sense of escaping into the natural world in this 1920 collection of his pros,...
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Save The Robots: Life At New York’s Best Illegal Nightclub In The 1980s Save the Robots was an underground after hours club in New York City’s Lower East Side. Deb Diz...
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Save the Robots was an underground after hours club in New York City’s Lower East Side. Deb Diz Fearon was living in the building at 25 Avenue B, Manhattan before the ‘Robots’ moved into the basement. “We were the tenants that got kicked out so Save The Robots could move in,” she...
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Tribes of Detroit 1968 : New American People On The Cusp Of Change Enrico Natali’s Detroit 1968 was first published in 1972 under the title New American People, a...
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Enrico Natali’s Detroit 1968 was first published in 1972 under the title New American People, a photography series of everyday people at work and at home in urban America, having been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1969 as New American Life. In his introduction to...
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The Art of Arranging Flowers: A 1960s Guide for Achieving Harmony Through Art and Nature The Art of Arranging Flowers (1965) by Shozo Sato is a comprehensive guide to the Japanese art of...
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The Art of Arranging Flowers (1965) by Shozo Sato is a comprehensive guide to the Japanese art of ikebana. The practice, which roughly translates to “making flowers come alive”, “the way of flowers” or the less poetic “flowers kept alive” uses flora to create specific human...
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Big Hair & True Love in 1980s Kentucky For over a decade in the 1980s and 1990s Richard Bram photographed people at the Kentucky Derby...
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For over a decade in the 1980s and 1990s Richard Bram photographed people at the Kentucky Derby Festival in Louisville, an annual two-week event preceding the first Saturday in May, the day of the Kentucky Derby horse race. It was all about the gigantic hair. You can see his...
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In The Living Room: At Home With The Working Class in The 1980s “Everything centred on the living room – it’s where everyone met and congregated” – Nick Walpington...
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“Everything centred on the living room – it’s where everyone met and congregated” – Nick Walpington on his Living Room project     Time to step back inside British homes in the late 1980s with photographer Nick Waplington’s Living Room series. Published as a book in 1991, the...
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Heavy Metal: West Midlands Industry In the Late 1970s “The noise was deafening. The heat was intense. I’d never seen anything like it” – American...
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“The noise was deafening. The heat was intense. I’d never seen anything like it” – American photographer Janine Wiedel on her first visit to the industrial West Midlands     The Vulcan’s Forge photobook shows us faces of late 1970s industry in England’s West Midlands. Based on...
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Twenty Drawings by Kahlil Gibran, 1919 “Speak to us of Beauty” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet   In 1919, Lebanese-American artist, poet and...
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“Speak to us of Beauty” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet   In 1919, Lebanese-American artist, poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) published the collection Twenty Drawings, the first and only time a selection of his paintings had appeared in print....
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Gas Mask Photos: An Alternative Mask for the Halloween Season The idea of disguise and wearing masks is central to art. From Saul Steinberg’s paper bag masks to...
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The idea of disguise and wearing masks is central to art. From Saul Steinberg’s paper bag masks to those incredible masks of the African phantom, Wladyslaw T. Benda’s living masks and William Mortensen’s haunting portraits from West of Zanzibar, appearances are changed to deceive...
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The World Turned Upside Down : Bizarro Illustrations From An 18th Century Chapbook The World Turned Upside Down or The Folly of Man Exemplified in Twelve Comical Relations upon...
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The World Turned Upside Down or The Folly of Man Exemplified in Twelve Comical Relations upon Uncommon Subjects is Illustrated with Twelve Curious Cuts Truly Adapted to Each Story. The witty woodcuts show various role reversals. A cow becomes a butcher and the butcher his meat. A...
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Writing Templates From A Beautiful German Printing Book, c. 1880 Created by Peter Federmann, these writing templates were for painters, stonemasons, architects and...
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Created by Peter Federmann, these writing templates were for painters, stonemasons, architects and drawing schools. They were printed and published by J. Veith of Karlsruhe, Germany around 1880 as ‘Schriften Vorlagen zum Praktischen Gebrauche für Maler, Steinhauer, Architecten...
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26 Found Photos of Australian Life In the 1970s The best satire is never far removed from the truth it lampoons. In the 1970s, comedian Barry...
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The best satire is never far removed from the truth it lampoons. In the 1970s, comedian Barry Humphries (17 February 1934 – 22 April 2023) created Sir Les Patterson and made him Australia’s cultural ambassador. Drunk, lecherous and offensive, after Sir Les made his debut...
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Street Walker: Dynamic America In The 1970s “My surroundings always influence my life and artwork. It’s where I am and what makes me smile” –...
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“My surroundings always influence my life and artwork. It’s where I am and what makes me smile” – Meryl Meisler   Before cameras became ubiquitous and the billions of instantly sharable and instantly forgettable pictures formed the backdrop to our more insular digital lives,...
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Manhattan Noir: John Fensten’s Photographs of New York City in the 1980s John Fensten (American, New York, 1936-2001) studied acting with the world-renowned Actor’s Studio...
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John Fensten (American, New York, 1936-2001) studied acting with the world-renowned Actor’s Studio with Lee and Susan Strasberg in the late 1950s, early 1960s. He appeared on the critically acclaimed CBS television anthology drama series Playhouse 90. And was a longtime resident...
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Joris Hoefnagel: The Emperor’s Best Artist Who Drew Insects That Told of Love And Death Illustrations from the Mira calligraphiae monumenta (The Model Book of Calligraphy) were created by...
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Illustrations from the Mira calligraphiae monumenta (The Model Book of Calligraphy) were created by Croatian scribe Georg Bocskay (died 1575) and Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel (1542–1601). There is no evidence the two artists ever met, but their collaboration was decades in the...
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The Spellbinding Corrupted Photos On An Artist’s Stolen Laptop Pasedena police called photographer Melanie Willhide to tell her the good news: they’d found her...
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Pasedena police called photographer Melanie Willhide to tell her the good news: they’d found her laptop and backup drive. They’d pulled over a car being driven by Adrian Rodriguez and spotted Willhide’s stolen possession on the back seat.  “It’s kind of like winning the lottery;...
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Black Woodstock: The Harlem Cultural Festival, NYC – 1969 Away from the “peace and love” at Woodstock in 1969, New York City’s Harlem was the venue for a...
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Away from the “peace and love” at Woodstock in 1969, New York City’s Harlem was the venue for a series of shows that became known as Black Woodstock. Held at 3pm on Sundays in Mount Morris Park between 29 June and 24 August, 1969, as many as 300,000 people attended the festival...
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El Lissitzky’s Soviet Pressa Exhibition in Cologne, 1928 At his peak, El Lissitzky (23 November 1890 – 30 December 1941) was arguably the most renowned...
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At his peak, El Lissitzky (23 November 1890 – 30 December 1941) was arguably the most renowned artist of the Soviet avant-garde, more so than his friend Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, and Alexander Rodchenko. A trained architect, El Lissitzsky was the artist the USSR’s...
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Strange Magic: Belgium In Colour by Harry Gruyaert ‘Belgium is much more aesthetic. I’m making fun of my people and my own upbringing; colour here also...
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‘Belgium is much more aesthetic. I’m making fun of my people and my own upbringing; colour here also refers to my relationship to my country.’ — Harry Gruyaert   Harry Gruyaert’s photographs show his preference for shooting in the street, where he can capture the unexpected, most...
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Welcome to the Country Club: Prison Life in Four Different Nations Dutch photographer Jan Banning turned his lens on prisons and prisoners for his book Law & Order:...
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Dutch photographer Jan Banning turned his lens on prisons and prisoners for his book Law & Order: The World of Criminal Justice,. Below we see photographs pictures of prison life in Colombia, France, Uganda and the United States. “I’m interested in these aspects of society that...
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Bob Pepper Art: Adult Fantasy And You can see American artist Bob Pepper’s (October 23, 1938—January 16, 2019) illustrations on record...
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You can see American artist Bob Pepper’s (October 23, 1938—January 16, 2019) illustrations on record and paperback covers for Elektra Records’ Nonesuch and Checkmate labels, notably on Love’s 1967 Forever Changes album. Ballentine books’ Adult Fantasy series and game artwork made...
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Bob Pepper Art: Adult Fantasy And Vinyl Covers You can see American artist Bob Pepper’s (October 23, 1938—January 16, 2019) illustrations on record...
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You can see American artist Bob Pepper’s (October 23, 1938—January 16, 2019) illustrations on record and paperback covers for Elektra Records’ Nonesuch and Checkmate labels, notably on Love’s 1967 Forever Changes album. Ballentine books’ Adult Fantasy series and game artwork made...
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The Wonder Of Soviet Bus Stops “The bus stops are disappearing so fast. If I come back a year from now, they could be gone,...
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“The bus stops are disappearing so fast. If I come back a year from now, they could be gone, demolished, or rebuilt. These pictures may be all that’s left in the end. I want to give them some kind of immortality.” — Christopher Herwig, Photographer and Soviet Bus Stop Hunter  ...
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Daily Self-Portraits 1972–1973: Laying It Bare On The Lower East Side Melissa Shook (1932-2020) was living on New York’s Lower East Side in the early 1970s when she began...
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Melissa Shook (1932-2020) was living on New York’s Lower East Side in the early 1970s when she began a project to record her daily existence. Much like Peggy Nolan’s pictures of her family home, life was a place of free expression. “My earliest memories are of being photographed...
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Fixing Time In 1970s and 80s England: Ian Macdonald Shows Us A Changing World Ian Macdonald’s black-and-white film photography from the 1970 and 80s shows us children’s at...
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Ian Macdonald’s black-and-white film photography from the 1970 and 80s shows us children’s at school, heavy industry, steel works, Redcar blast furnace, Smith’s Dock Shipyard, houseboats and life in Cleveland and Teesside, England.   “The blast furnace has a drama and beauty to...
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László Moholy-Nagy: Art from the Epoch of the Modernist Experiment László Moholy-Nagy (July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Jewish Hungarian poet, painter and...
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László Moholy-Nagy (July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Jewish Hungarian poet, painter and photographer before he became the major proselytiser of the new avant-garde vision at the Bauhaus school, where has taught as a professor and succeeded is working across disciplines.  ...
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Jindřich Štreit’s Villge People : Photographs of the Czechoslovak Countryside “I try not to present villages in a romantic way’ – Jindřich Štreit     Jindřich Štreit (born 5...
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“I try not to present villages in a romantic way’ – Jindřich Štreit     Jindřich Štreit (born 5 September 1946 in Vsetín) is a Czech photographer best known for his documentary photography. He concentrates on documenting the rural life and people of Czech villages. His...
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Dust And Decadence In Weimar Berlin: Gustav Wunderwald’s Paintings Of Another City Weimar Berlin wasn’t all cabaret, sex, drugs and lots of fun. The set designer and artist Gustav...
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Weimar Berlin wasn’t all cabaret, sex, drugs and lots of fun. The set designer and artist Gustav Wunderwald (1 January 1882 – 24 June 1945) liked to look at the other side of life in Germany’s biggest city. He avoided the decadence and any obvious comment and conspicuous...
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Snapshots of People Posing with Statues : A Cast of Thousands Having featured pictures of people meeting statues of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Jackson now delves...
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Having featured pictures of people meeting statues of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Jackson now delves into his fabulous collection of snapshots to show us people posing with other statues. Most are having a laugh, mimicking the poses, affecting some romantic clinch (groping,...
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Henri Van Der Stok’s Zodiac Stars And Gods Dutch artist Henri van der Stok (1870-1946) was born in Indonesia and settled in the Hague, where he...
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Dutch artist Henri van der Stok (1870-1946) was born in Indonesia and settled in the Hague, where he was a member of the city’s Pulchri Studio. He created these brilliant woodcuts of planetary gods and zodiac signs. As John Couthlart notes, van der Stok’s work trails that of...
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Eating At The Montreal Restaurant ‘Famous for Its Little Pig’ – 1938-1972 For nearly four decades from 1938, Jean-Paul Cuerrier (1918-1997) took pictures of diners feeding a...
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For nearly four decades from 1938, Jean-Paul Cuerrier (1918-1997) took pictures of diners feeding a pig at the table at Au Lutin Qui Bouffe restaurant in Montreal, Canada. Patrons would take home the photo as a souvenir. The typical posse was for one diner to feed the piglet milk...
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The Boston Years: On The Streets 1972-75 In 1972, Philip Flip Collier was in Boston. Philip, who has previously shared his terrific...
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In 1972, Philip Flip Collier was in Boston. Philip, who has previously shared his terrific photographs of 1970s NYC, enrolled at the city’s New England School of Photography where he studied for the next two years with the hope of becoming a commercial photographer, but I could...
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Real Family Photos: A Mother of Photographs Her Seven Children’s Chaotic Coming Of Age “These photographs are mostly not posed: I just butted into my kids’ personal business and, a lot of...
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“These photographs are mostly not posed: I just butted into my kids’ personal business and, a lot of times, they weren’t that happy about it. I went to three or four Lollapalooza concerts with my camera when they were there – I busted into things not to supervise them but to take...
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Windows In Time: The New York City Years, 1975 – 1980 We are delighted to share reader Philip Flip Collier’s photographs of New York City in the late...
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We are delighted to share reader Philip Flip Collier’s photographs of New York City in the late 1970s to 1980. Upon graduating from The New England School of Photography in Boston, Massachusetts in 1974, he immediately took to the streets. Here he tell us his story of living in...
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Erté’s Naked Alphabet, 1967 It took Erté decades to complete his naked, somewhat erotic Alphabet – began in the late 1920s and...
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It took Erté decades to complete his naked, somewhat erotic Alphabet – began in the late 1920s and not finished until 1967. All 26 letters are created in individual gouaches on paper, in exotic human form (and later formed print editions). This exhibit was a hit when it was first...
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Evelyn Richter’s Street Photography Reveals the Reality of Life in East Germany For photographer Evelyn Richter (1930–2021) East Germany was not computers being towed by the...
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For photographer Evelyn Richter (1930–2021) East Germany was not computers being towed by the bikini-clad proletariat, Western holidaymakers, badly disguised secret police and being on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. A self-described “documentarian and historian”, Richter...
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Salford in 1977: People Of Langworthy, Ordsall and the Adelphi In 1977, Phil Portus photographed life on the streets of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. A...
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In 1977, Phil Portus photographed life on the streets of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. A member of the Reflex photography group, led by documentarian Diane Bush, a young American established documentary photographer, Portus wanted to show the everyday things people...
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Peter Hujar’s Portraits of Life and Death: A Somberly Beautiful Photography Collection (1976) Shown at the Venice Biennale 2024, Peter Hujar’s Portraits in Life And Death exhibition features his...
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Shown at the Venice Biennale 2024, Peter Hujar’s Portraits in Life And Death exhibition features his 1970s portraits of artists on New York’s Lower East Side and images from the 1960s of the dead in Palermo’s catacombs.   Peter Hujar’s (October 11, 1934 – November 26, 1987) black...
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Facade: Bill Cunningham’s Tribute To New York Style In 1968, American fashion photographer Bill Cunningham (March 13, 1929 – June 25, 2016) started a...
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In 1968, American fashion photographer Bill Cunningham (March 13, 1929 – June 25, 2016) started a project to document New York City’s rich history of architecture and fashion. Cunningham dressed his friend and fellow photographer Editta Sherman (July 9, 1912 – November 1, 2013)...
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London By Tube, DLR and Overground in The Early 1990s Today, I’m gonna take my bike ‘Cause once again the Tube’s on strike The greedy bastards want extra...
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Today, I’m gonna take my bike ‘Cause once again the Tube’s on strike The greedy bastards want extra pay For sitting on their arse all day! – London Underground by The Amateur Transplants Peter Marshall shows us pictures of stations on the London Underground, Docklands light...
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The Coming of the Unconscious: JG Ballard’s Guide To Surrealism In Science Fiction In 1966, readers of issue 164 of New Worlds magazine (1946 – 1997) could enjoy writer JG Ballard’s...
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In 1966, readers of issue 164 of New Worlds magazine (1946 – 1997) could enjoy writer JG Ballard’s (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009)review of La Jetée, the time-travel short by Chris Marker about time and memory which was receiving its first London screenings and his essay ‘The...
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Curious Pictures From A French Aristocrat’s 40-Year Mission To Create 3-D Photography “Imagine… a photograph of a woman wearing earrings adorned with a glittering De Beers diamond. You...
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“Imagine… a photograph of a woman wearing earrings adorned with a glittering De Beers diamond. You see one earring. Walk slowly past the photograph so you are viewing it from gradually changing angles… The earring from one ear recedes from view while its twin [appears] in turn on...
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SoHo And New York City In The 1980s Gérard Monger has been taking photos for more than 56 years. “I wanted to become a photojournalist,”...
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Gérard Monger has been taking photos for more than 56 years. “I wanted to become a photojournalist,” he tells us, “but I became a computer scientist. I lived for a long time in the suburbs of Paris, Colombes and then Maisons Laffitte. Now I live in the center of France in Nevers....
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It’s About Time: The Forgotten Song That Made The Beach Boys Cool Again The Beach Boys were no longer a hit band when Bob Burchman sat in his car in early July 1970,...
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The Beach Boys were no longer a hit band when Bob Burchman sat in his car in early July 1970, listening to a tape that Dennis Wilson had given him. Bob wasn’t a Beach Boys fan — he preferred Sly Stone or Marvin Gaye or Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell or The Beatles  —  but Dennis, an...
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Photographer Photobombs Families In Their Homes (1973) For his series Met mijn gezin (With My Family), made in 1973, Dutch photographer Hans Eijkelboom...
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For his series Met mijn gezin (With My Family), made in 1973, Dutch photographer Hans Eijkelboom rang the doorbells of strangers’ houses. Having waited the man of the house to leave, Eijkelboom would ask the woman who answered the door to pose in a family portrait with him in the...
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Found Vintage Photobooth Pictures “Collecting the photobooth strip (approximate size 8 inches by 1.5 inches) has been an adventure,”...
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“Collecting the photobooth strip (approximate size 8 inches by 1.5 inches) has been an adventure,” says vintage photography collector Robert E. Jackson. “If you see or own an amazing photobooth, you can pretty much figure it used to be part of a 4-pose strip. The individual...
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High-Class Erotic Illustrations by Édouard-Henri Avril (NSFW) In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, pornography was the preserve of the well to...
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In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, pornography was the preserve of the well to do. Smut was published in  shot-run books of a couple of hundred copies. These books were full of stories and poems, but the highlights were the explicit erotic illustrations drawn...
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Zodiac Love: Plaster Sex Sculptures by Tom Otterness (1982–87) American sculptor Tom Otterness (born. 1952) was an organisers of Art Direct, a mail-order art...
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American sculptor Tom Otterness (born. 1952) was an organisers of Art Direct, a mail-order art catalog published by Collaborative Projects (Colab) and Printed Matter, Inc. for Christmas 1982. Colab sought cultural activism that was purely artist driven. In addition to creating...
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Woodstock Festival Comics from the 1970s In October 1970s, the 1969 Woodstock Festival was immortalised in a comic book. The romance story “I...
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In October 1970s, the 1969 Woodstock Festival was immortalised in a comic book. The romance story “I Found My Love at the Woodstock Festival!” appeared in Falling in Love #118.     Comics and Woodstock were a good match. Charles M. Schulz’s didn’t name the little yellow bird and...
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Shopping The Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen Flea Market in 1990 We’re browsing the stalls at Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen, the wold’s largest antiques and second-hand...
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We’re browsing the stalls at Puces de Paris Saint-Ouen, the wold’s largest antiques and second-hand goods market, in Paris, France. Peter Marshall was staying in Noisy-le-Grand in the city’s eastern suburbs when he mooched to the market. Taken on walks around the area and...
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See The Rolling Stones 1966 Tour Program In 1966, The Rolling Stones were on tour, supported by The Yardbirds, Long John Baldry and Peter Jay...
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In 1966, The Rolling Stones were on tour, supported by The Yardbirds, Long John Baldry and Peter Jay and the New Jaywalkers and Ike & Tina Turner. Formed in 1962, The Stones had their first number one in ‘64 and in 1966 had released what was to be their breakthrough album an...
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Photos of Britain’s Post-War Youth By Roger Mayne British photographer Roger Mayne (1929 – 2014) documented the lives of young people growing-up in...
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British photographer Roger Mayne (1929 – 2014) documented the lives of young people growing-up in Britain in the mid-1950s and ‘60s.     Self-taught and influential in the acceptance of photography as an art form, Mayne was passionate about photographing human life as he found...
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Painting The Celestial Afterglow after Krakatoa, 1888 On the 27th August 1883, the Krakatoa (Krakatau) volcano exploded and the sky changed colour. Lying...
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On the 27th August 1883, the Krakatoa (Krakatau) volcano exploded and the sky changed colour. Lying on the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung, Krakatoa was hit by a series of four massive eruptions – the equivalent to 200...
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Arnaldo Putzu and His Fabulous Hand-Painted Covers for Look-In Magazine And Movie Posters You might not know the name Arnaldo Putzu (1927 – 2012) but chances are that if you grew up in the...
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You might not know the name Arnaldo Putzu (1927 – 2012) but chances are that if you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s you’ve seen his work on movie posters and magazine covers. Born in Rome, Putzu studied at the Rome Academy and discovered a love of portrait painting. After...
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People of the Twentieth Century: the Ideal German, the Nazi and the Persecuted Jew “If we can create portraits of subjects that are true, we thereby in effect create a mirror of the...
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“If we can create portraits of subjects that are true, we thereby in effect create a mirror of the times.” – August Sander, creator of Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts (People of The 20th Century)   What you see above is a picture of Arnold Katz and Benjamin (Benno) Katz being...
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Theory of Colours: James Sowerby’s ‘A New Elucidation’ (1809) These illustrations are from Theory of Colours: James Sowerby’s ‘A New Elucidation’ (1809). Sowerby...
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These illustrations are from Theory of Colours: James Sowerby’s ‘A New Elucidation’ (1809). Sowerby (21 March 1757 – 25 October 1822) was an English naturalist and Royal Academy-trained illustrator who specialised in drawing plants and minerals. The full title of his illustrated...
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Käthe Kollwitz Self Portraits “I have no trouble with the idea of my art serving a purpose. I want to have an impact at a time...
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“I have no trouble with the idea of my art serving a purpose. I want to have an impact at a time when people are so baffled, so in need of help.” – Käthe Kollwitz diary entry, December 1922   Käthe Kollwitz (8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945) made over 100 self-portraits of her …...
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Moe’s Photos of Jacob Riis House On New York City’s Lower East Side 1977-1983 In 1977, Moe a resident of the Jacob Riis Houses decided to capture his neighborhood from East 10th...
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In 1977, Moe a resident of the Jacob Riis Houses decided to capture his neighborhood from East 10th Street to East 12th Street on Avenue D, Lower East Side, New York City, writes Efrain ‘Kid Love’ Rodriguez. The Summer was hot, the Son of Sam was terrorizing the streets of New...
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British Punks in the 1980s by Shirley Baker British photographer Shirley Baker captured these fabulous portraits of punks on the streets of...
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British photographer Shirley Baker captured these fabulous portraits of punks on the streets of Manchester, Stockport and London’s Camden Town in the early 1980s. Shirley’s daughter, Nan Levy, spoke to the Museum of of Youth Culture about her mother’s work as part of an...
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Find the Girls on the Negatives: The Shocking Origins of Beautiful Photos Found in a Thrift Store In 2015, Meagan Abell was shopping in Richmond, Virginia when she spotted four sets of medium-format...
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In 2015, Meagan Abell was shopping in Richmond, Virginia when she spotted four sets of medium-format negatives protected in plastic sleeves in a box of vintage photographs. Abell bought the negatives, scanned them and saw the beautiful pictures of two young women standing on a...
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New York City’s NIGHT Magazine – 1978-79 Launched in September 1978, Anton Perich’s self-financed NIGHT magazine showcased New York City’s...
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Launched in September 1978, Anton Perich’s self-financed NIGHT magazine showcased New York City’s mix of fashion, art, and music at clubs like Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager’s Studio 54 and Howard Stein and Peppo Vanini’s Xenon, where nightlife and performance met. Distribution...
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The Kaikidan Ekotoba Monster Scroll from 19th Century Japan The Kaikidan Ekotoba scroll features paintings of 33 monsters, both fantastic and plain odd from...
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The Kaikidan Ekotoba scroll features paintings of 33 monsters, both fantastic and plain odd from Japan. It’s a subject we’ve visited before with the Yokai Horrors from the 18th Century Bakemono Zukushi Scroll. Thought to originate in the mid 1800s, the artist behind the Kaikidan...
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When Gilbert Shelton’s Fabulous Furry Freaks And Poddy Ruled The World! Gilbert Shelton (born May 31, 1940) is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground...
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Gilbert Shelton (born May 31, 1940) is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy’s Cat, and a co-founder of Rip Off Press in San Francisco in 1969.   Shelton...
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Arrows – Love And Punishment in Vintage Snapshots The latest submission for collector supreme Robert E. Jackson focuses on arrows in snapshots. Some...
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The latest submission for collector supreme Robert E. Jackson focuses on arrows in snapshots. Some have been drawn on the printed photo with pen, others form part of the image itself.     The use of bows and arrows by humans predates recorded history and is common to most...
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Edmund Dulac’s American Weekly Covers – 1924-1951 Edmund Dulac is remembered today as one of the founding fathers of the Golden Age of Illustration,...
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Edmund Dulac is remembered today as one of the founding fathers of the Golden Age of Illustration, roughly from 1875-1925, writes Albert Seligman. His luxurious Gift Books of the early 20th century were covered in vellum and issued in signed limited editions with tipped-in color...
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Armand Henrion: The Artist Who Always Painted Himself As A Clown Armand Henrion (1875 – 1958) was a Belgian-born artist. He contributed to the Expressionist...
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Armand Henrion (1875 – 1958) was a Belgian-born artist. He contributed to the Expressionist movement, worked in France and became a French citizen. And he liked to paint self-portraits – hundreds of them – in which he is dressed as a clown (more Pierrot than Bozo).     Pierrot...
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L’Ornement Polychrome by Albert Racinet – A Gorgeous Book Of World Art (1869–73) Albert Racinet (1825–1893) created his L’ornement Polychrome as a visual record of the decorative...
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Albert Racinet (1825–1893) created his L’ornement Polychrome as a visual record of the decorative arts from antiquity to the late nineteenth century and represents the work of  cultures all over the world. He published a second series which included later works, too.   Raninet...
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Finding Mom in 1970s New York City – Rich Allen’s Portraits Roll Back The Years Thanks to Rich Allen and his brilliant pictures of New York City in the 1970s, Lisa Murray got to...
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Thanks to Rich Allen and his brilliant pictures of New York City in the 1970s, Lisa Murray got to see a picture of her late mother. We’re going to share some more of Rich’s portraits of people of 1970s NYC after we’ve heard from Lisa. “I am so grateful for Rich Allen for taking...
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The Devil’s Dictionary: The 50-ish Best Descriptions From The Cynic’s Word Book, 1906 Written by American journalist Ambrose Bierce (24 June 1842 – c.1914), The Devil’s Dictionary, aka...
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Written by American journalist Ambrose Bierce (24 June 1842 – c.1914), The Devil’s Dictionary, aka The Cynic’s Word Book, consists of common words followed by humorous and satirical definitions. The book was a compilation of Bierce’s columns for The Wasp (1881–1860 plus) and The...
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Once Upon a Time in Brick Lane: 1970s East London Before Gentrification Brick Lane in London’s East End is in area of flux. From the road where they used mark bricks and...
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Brick Lane in London’s East End is in area of flux. From the road where they used mark bricks and brew beer, the place has been sanctuary to immigrants for centuries and is now home to a large Bangladeshi community. In the 17th century, French Huguenots arrived and brought with...
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The Cocaine Consumer’s Handbook, 1976 The Cocaine Consumer’s Handbook was published in 1976 and 1980. This user guide to knowing cocaine...
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The Cocaine Consumer’s Handbook was published in 1976 and 1980. This user guide to knowing cocaine was presented in the tone of an educational reference book. The drug was illegal – still is, of course – and publishing a book on it is risky. But it an effort to produce the...
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Great Photos: Le Mariage des Diables Blancs, May 22 1954 On May 22 1954, tightrope walkers Berthy Omankowsky and Roger Decugis married on a rope stretched...
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On May 22 1954, tightrope walkers Berthy Omankowsky and Roger Decugis married on a rope stretched high above the Place du Capitole in Toulouse, France. The wedding of two members of the Franco-Czechoslovakian (Diables Blancs) White Devils Company was overseen by Father Robert...
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Myself: Timed Exposures, 1971 Mike Mandel (previously) took this series of selfies in 1971 for the project Myself: Time Exposures....
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Mike Mandel (previously) took this series of selfies in 1971 for the project Myself: Time Exposures. Influenced by Jacques Henri Lartigue, Lee Friedlander and Marcel Duchamp’s work on the conceptual frame, the fun pictures invite us to question what we see and our place in the...
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Strange And Terrible: Hunter S. Thompson And The Hell’s Angels (1965) In my own country I am in a far-off land I am strong but have no force or power I win all yet remain...
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In my own country I am in a far-off land I am strong but have no force or power I win all yet remain a loser At break of day I say goodnight When I lie down I have a great fear Of falling. – Ballade du concours de Blois by François Villon     … Continue reading "Strange And...
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A Look Inside London Cafes and Greasy Spoons In the Early 1990s We’ve seen the outside of many London cafes in the 1980s and 1990s, first here then more. Now Peter...
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We’ve seen the outside of many London cafes in the 1980s and 1990s, first here then more. Now Peter Marshall pokes his camera inside London’s lost cafes and shows us around. We see lots of formica counters, brightly coloured chairs, the stainless steel urns for ready-made coffee...
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Len Deighton’s Action Cookbook : How To Seduce With An Omelette (1965) Len Deighton’s Action Cookbook (1965) began life as cookery strips (aka ‘cookstrips’) when Leighton...
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Len Deighton’s Action Cookbook (1965) began life as cookery strips (aka ‘cookstrips’) when Leighton was a student at London’s  Royal Academy and St Martin’s art school, and living with classmate Bob Hyde. Aimed at “an audience of men unskilled at knowing their way around the...
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Groovy Ads That Sold Woolworths’ UK Line of Baby Doll Cosmetics Here are several examples of the many groovy psychedelic adverts produced in the 1960s to promote...
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Here are several examples of the many groovy psychedelic adverts produced in the 1960s to promote Woolworths’ UK line of “Baby Doll” cosmetics in the late 1960s. These “pop-style” adverts appeared in the country’s magazines for teenagers, like Jackie, RAVE, Flair, Queen and...
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Lee Balterman’s Chicago in the 1950s Lee Balterman (1920 – March 16, 2012) was born in Chicago, took night classes in drawing and...
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Lee Balterman (1920 – March 16, 2012) was born in Chicago, took night classes in drawing and painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago – the only formal training of his career – and until his death lived and photographed almost daily in Chicago for newspapers,...
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Things To Come : The 1950s Science Fiction Book Club Newsletter Things To Come was the monthly newsletter (originally bi-monthly) of publisher Doubleday’s Science...
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Things To Come was the monthly newsletter (originally bi-monthly) of publisher Doubleday’s Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC). The short, typically four-page issues promoted the book club’s coming selections and best of volumes from Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science...
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Saul Leiter In Colour And Before – Photographs from A Centenary Special Photographer Saul Leiter (1923 –  2013) is remembered in Saul Leiter: The Centennial Retrospective,...
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Photographer Saul Leiter (1923 –  2013) is remembered in Saul Leiter: The Centennial Retrospective, a monograph from Thames and Hudson. The books features many of Leiter’s most gorgeous pictures, not least of all the street photograph above of a woman sat at a cafe in Paris in...
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One Night At The Empire Roller Disco, Brooklyn NYC – February 1980 On assignment for Forbes magazine on a winter’s night in 1980, Patrick D. Pagnano’s was in Crown...
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On assignment for Forbes magazine on a winter’s night in 1980, Patrick D. Pagnano’s was in Crown Heights to see the skaters at Brooklyn’s Empire Roller Disco. Formerly the Empire Rollerdrome (built 1941), the rink was now all disco. It was where Cher hosted the release party for...
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Highlights of Colour Theory: Illustrating The Mysteries of Light In Colour Whels, Tables, Charts And... Wavelengths of light between 400 and 700 nanometers on the electromagnetic spectrum (EM) are known...
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Wavelengths of light between 400 and 700 nanometers on the electromagnetic spectrum (EM) are known as visible light, or light that can be processed and seen by the human eye. It’s a little fraction of all the EM radiation around us. There are many other parts of the EM spectrum...
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The Last Question: Hear Leonard Nimoy Read Isaac Asimov’s Best Short Story Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) liked one of his stories above all others – more than...
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Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) liked one of his stories above all others – more than the 500 or so stories he wrote or edited, including the bestselling I, Robot, the Foundation series and Lecherous Limericks. The story is The Last Question. First published in the...
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Stanley Kubrick’s Photos of Chicago (Volume 2), 1949 In 1949, Look magazine sent its young photojournalist Stanley Kubrick on assignment to shoot...
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In 1949, Look magazine sent its young photojournalist Stanley Kubrick on assignment to shoot pictures for a story documenting people’s life in the city of Chicago. You can see Volume 1 of his photos here. The series of photographs was accompanied by an essay from the Chicago...
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Breaking Through To The Other Side: The Flammarion Engraving, c.1888 The so-called ‘Flammarion engraving’ is a wood engraving by an unknown artist that first appeared in...
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The so-called ‘Flammarion engraving’ is a wood engraving by an unknown artist that first appeared in French writer Camille Flammarion’s L’Atmosphère: Météorologie populaire (1888) in a chapter called ‘The Shape of the Sky’. The image is of a man crawling under the edge of the...
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Vintage Illustrations Of Japanese Anthropomorphic Frogs and Toads The Japanese phrase kimo-kawaii translates into ‘cute and ugly’. It can be applied to frogs and...
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The Japanese phrase kimo-kawaii translates into ‘cute and ugly’. It can be applied to frogs and toads, often portrayed in Japanese art in anthropomorphic fashion as they engage in fighting, marching with spirits (yokai) and casting spells. Here we look at a range of prints...
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At Home With Candy, Andy and the Bearandas, A Terrifying Children’s Comic From 1966 In 1966, Candy and Andy lived with their parents, Mr and Mrs Bearandas above a toy shop in a typical...
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In 1966, Candy and Andy lived with their parents, Mr and Mrs Bearandas above a toy shop in a typical English village called Riverale, going about the place in their rainbow-striped Mini. For a year, their everyday lives were documented in 154 comic books ( ‘the comic full of fun...
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Y Viva Espana: The Great British Package Holiday In Photos When in June 1987, Shirley Baker photographed passengers at England’s Manchester Airport, many of...
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When in June 1987, Shirley Baker photographed passengers at England’s Manchester Airport, many of them would have been on their way to sunny Spain as part of their package holiday. Jake Clark first arrived there in the late 1960s when his parents moved to a fishing village in...
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Photos of Iggy Pop And The Stooges Playing NYC Club Ungano’s in 1970 In August 1970, American photographer Bud Lee (1940-2016) took photographs of Iggy Pop and the...
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In August 1970, American photographer Bud Lee (1940-2016) took photographs of Iggy Pop and the Stooges performing at brothers Nick and Arnie Ungano’s basement club on New York’s West 70th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenues. The ban were celebrating the release of their...
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The Death of A New Jersey Shopping Mall There are about 1,000 malls in the US, and it’s estimated that one in four will close in the next...
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There are about 1,000 malls in the US, and it’s estimated that one in four will close in the next few years as vacancy rates are increasing due to the pandemic, a slowed economy and increased online shopping. Photographer Phillip Buehler captured the death of the Wayne Hills mall...
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Lower Manhattan in 1973 These Documerica photographs by Wil Blanche of lower Manhattan, New York City, were taken in May...
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These Documerica photographs by Wil Blanche of lower Manhattan, New York City, were taken in May 1973 in as part of the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which partnered with professional photographers to take pictures of America. The project collected more...
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Creating Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa – An Illustrated History “At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who...
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“At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign my … Continue reading "Creating...
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Omega: The Last Days of the World – Camille Flammarion’s Visions of A Dying Planet (1883) ‘The most deadly pestilence would have carried far less terror to the heart than the astronomical...
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‘The most deadly pestilence would have carried far less terror to the heart than the astronomical prediction on every tongue; it would have made fewer victims, for already, from some unknown cause, the death-rate was increasing. At every instant one felt the electric shock of a...
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In Your Face: Photographer Shoots Londoners Up Close And Personal Using the skills he learned as a table tennis champ, Londoner Paul Trevor wandered through the...
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Using the skills he learned as a table tennis champ, Londoner Paul Trevor wandered through the city’s financial district and its money markets and Brick Lane market getting in people’s faces. These spontaneous closeups appeared in the book and show In  Your Face. Like Mark...
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Emma Willard’s Time Maps “Education cannot prosper in any community unless…the best and most cultivated talents of that...
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“Education cannot prosper in any community unless…the best and most cultivated talents of that community can be brought in to exercise the way.” – Emma Hart Willard   Emma Willard (February 23, 1787 – April 15, 1870) was a trailblazing American educator who founded the first...
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Got Live If You Want It: John Scott’s Concert Photographs of Alice Cooper, Bryan Ferry, John Lydon... Never let go of your dreams because nobody else is going to make them happen. When John Scott was a...
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Never let go of your dreams because nobody else is going to make them happen. When John Scott was a child he harboured dreams of becoming a photographer. He roamed around his parents’ home and snapped pictures in his head. He had a talent for it which he thought of turning into a...
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Waiting For A Miracle: Kiev in 1998 In 1998, Juri Nesterov was in Kiev, the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It was a city of...
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In 1998, Juri Nesterov was in Kiev, the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It was a city of hope. In 1991, After 57 years as the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, the city became the capital of independent Ukraine. In the picture...
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Vanity Fair’s Bifurcated Girls: The Article That Introduced America To Girlie Magazines, 1903 Bifurcated Girls is a salacious illustrated story that first appeared in the June 1903 issue of...
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Bifurcated Girls is a salacious illustrated story that first appeared in the June 1903 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. That’s not the glossy publication we know today, rather the a short-lived pulp magazine published by the Commonwealth Publishing Company of New York City...
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American Noir: Mugshots And Crimes From A Small Pennsylvanian Town (1930s – 1950s) Small Town Noir is a study of life and crime in New Castle, western Pennsylvania. The site compiles...
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Small Town Noir is a study of life and crime in New Castle, western Pennsylvania. The site compiles the mugshots of criminals who lived in the town in the 1930, 40s and 50s, with notes on their offences. The mugshots were pulled from the rubbish when the town’s police department...
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Richard Teschner And His Magical World of Puppets And Dreams Richard Teschner (1879 – 1948), a graphic designer, artist and artisan in the Wiener Werkstätte...
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Richard Teschner (1879 – 1948), a graphic designer, artist and artisan in the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), is best known for his puppetry, especially that inspired by Wayang (“shadow”), the classical Javanese puppet drama that uses the shadows thrown by puppets...
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Liverpool Kids: Surviving Inner City Life In 1975 Paul Trevor’s photographs of Liverpool in 1975 formed part of The Survival Programme, which featured...
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Paul Trevor’s photographs of Liverpool in 1975 formed part of The Survival Programme, which featured pictures, interviews, drafts and other materials made by member of the Exit Photography Group – Nicholas Battye, Chris Steele-Perkins and Paul Trevor. Created between 1974 and...
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A Book of Dreams: 25 Vintage Visions To Awaken Your Mind We’re dreaming today with collector Robert E Jackson. Triggered by the undertow of memory and fed by...
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We’re dreaming today with collector Robert E Jackson. Triggered by the undertow of memory and fed by desire, our dreams are visions of other lives, possible clues to the future. “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the...
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A Look at London in 1975 with English Eccentrics and Mr Whippy It’s 1975 on Flashbak. We’re in and around London in the company of David Rostance. Let’s begin by...
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It’s 1975 on Flashbak. We’re in and around London in the company of David Rostance. Let’s begin by shopping for a Mr Whippy ice cream on Gypsy Hill, south of the River Thames. Or maybe a cider or Brandy Alexander lolly is more to your taste? You can see the full range of British...
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‘Look at Me’: Scot Sothern’s powerful photographs of life on LA’s streets In amongst the crowds drifting along Hollywood Boulevard there’s an old guy sitting on an orange...
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In amongst the crowds drifting along Hollywood Boulevard there’s an old guy sitting on an orange bucket. He’s wearing dirty jeans and a grey hoodie. The guy’s in his seventies. Weather-worn. Grizzled beard. Walking stick. Back trouble caused by “old spinal injuries and bad...
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The Image in The Machine: Typewriter Art in the 1960 and 1970s “If ‘technology’ is that which is invented after we are born, and ‘stuff’ is that which has always...
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“If ‘technology’ is that which is invented after we are born, and ‘stuff’ is that which has always been around, for those born now, computers, the internet and mobile phones are just stuff – in fact, it would be impossible for recent generations to imagine a world without these...
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Clubbers And Youth Tribes in Post-Punk London : 1978-1986 “As a photographer, I go as the casual observer and stand in the shadows. When I first went to those...
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“As a photographer, I go as the casual observer and stand in the shadows. When I first went to those Tuesday nights at Billy’s [1978] it was like walking into a Hieronymous Bosch painting – furtive but lively, very decadent reflecting what they were into, and yet with a sense of...
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A Shagtastic Tour of Swinging Britain in 1967 Among British Pathé’s newsreel films made for UK cinemas up until 1970 vis this wonderful time of...
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Among British Pathé’s newsreel films made for UK cinemas up until 1970 vis this wonderful time of Swinging Britain capsule from 1967. Shot on 35mm film and backed by the lilting holiday camp music, a narrator these videos are not a little kitsch. In Swinging Britain we take an...
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Brick Lane 1978: The Turning Point On 4 May 1978, Altab Ali (24 Oct 1953 – 4 May 1978), a Bangladesh-born textile worker in an area off...
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On 4 May 1978, Altab Ali (24 Oct 1953 – 4 May 1978), a Bangladesh-born textile worker in an area off Brick Lane, was stabbed to death in London, in a racially motivated attack. Paul Trevor’ photographs mark how East London’s Bengali activists fought for survival and the right to...
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Libby Hall: Remembering The Photographer and Collector of Dog Photography Libby Hall (1941-2023) was a friend. When she died last year at age 81, she let behind an archive...
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Libby Hall (1941-2023) was a friend. When she died last year at age 81, she let behind an archive that speaks of her talent as a street and press photographer, writer and collector, most notably of vintage dog photographs which now live at London’s Bishopsgate Institute. “Mine...
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Kurt Vonnegut’s drawings and other doodles “My own means of making a living is essentially clerical, and hence tedious and constipating. The...
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“My own means of making a living is essentially clerical, and hence tedious and constipating. The making of pictures is to writing what laughing gas is to the Asian influenza.'” – Kurt Vonnegut, Fates Worse Than Death     Kurt Vonnegut liked to draw. Other writers, notably J.R.R....
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Isaac Asimov’s Books of Dirty Limericks Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) is remembered for his prolific science fiction...
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Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) is remembered for his prolific science fiction writing, impressive ‘lamb chops’  – of which he said: “They became a permanent feature of my face, and it is now difficult to believe early photographs that show me without sideburns”...
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Dear Goldprick: Ian Fleming’s James Bond Letters “This, dear boy, not to put too fine a point on it, is a f***ing lie. When it is 11am in Jamaica, it...
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“This, dear boy, not to put too fine a point on it, is a f***ing lie. When it is 11am in Jamaica, it is 4pm in dear old England and it is carelessness of this kind that makes my eyes steel slits of blue. – Letter to James Bond author Ian Fleming     Many … Continue reading "Dear...
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British Grub: A Psychedelic Tribute To British Food From 1960s San Francisco Food, glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard While we’re in the mood, cold jelly and custard Pease...
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Food, glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard While we’re in the mood, cold jelly and custard Pease pudding and saveloys, what next is the question? Rich gentlemen have it boys – in-di-gestion! – Food Glorious Food from the muscial oliver by Lionel Bart, 1968     You didn’t need...
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Gods From Space: When London Taxi Diver George King Met Jesus And Other Aliens “Prepare yourself! You are to become the voice of Interplanetary Parliament” – ‘The Command’...
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“Prepare yourself! You are to become the voice of Interplanetary Parliament” – ‘The Command’ received by George King from space, 1954     On May 8th 1954, London taxi driver George King was doing the household chores when he heard a voice. What came to be known as “The Command”...
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Watch TV-CBGB – A Punk Sitcom From 1981 In November 1982, Billboard reviewed a CBGB-produced cable access show to “include interviews,...
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In November 1982, Billboard reviewed a CBGB-produced cable access show to “include interviews, comedy skits, and live performances”. Stuart Newman, a member of the The Roustabouts, one of the groups featured on the show – along with Idiot Savant, The Hard, Jo Marshall, Shrapnel...
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The Avicenna Canon Medicinae – An Illustrated Medical Book From 13th Century Paris First published in 13th Century Paris, the Avicenna, Canon Medicinae is an illustrated medical text...
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First published in 13th Century Paris, the Avicenna, Canon Medicinae is an illustrated medical text book made from tempera and gold leaf on parchment. Shelf marked Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 0457, the work is a Latin translation of Avicenna’s Canon medicinae, one of...
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Derek Jarman’s Home In Dungeness: Where Jesus Walked In The Garden Before a run of Derek Jarman’s (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) The Garden at New York’s...
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Before a run of Derek Jarman’s (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) The Garden at New York’s Metrograph theater, the British director spoke about his own garden and his house at Dungeness on the coast of Kent in England. Jarman made The Garden on the grounds of his seaside...
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East of the Sun and West of the Moon With Illustrations by Kay Nielsen, 1914 Kay Nielsen (March 12, 1886 – June 21, 1957) was a Danish illustrator best known for his work for...
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Kay Nielsen (March 12, 1886 – June 21, 1957) was a Danish illustrator best known for his work for Disney, for whom he contributed many story sketches and illustrations, not least the nightmarish, eerie and delicate Bald Mountain scenes for the animated movie Fantasia (1940). But...
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Ernest Hemingway’s Guide to Writing A Book From Start to Finish “The more he learns from experience the more truly he can imagine” – Ernst Hemingway on writing,...
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“The more he learns from experience the more truly he can imagine” – Ernst Hemingway on writing, 1935     In his October 1935 column for Esquire magazine called Monologue to the Maestro: A High Seas Letter, Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899–July 2, 1961) shared his tips for writing...
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Why James Bond Gave Up His Lady’s Gun For A Walther PPK Geoffrey Boothroyd (1925 – 20 October 2001) enjoyed reading spy novels and writing about guns in...
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Geoffrey Boothroyd (1925 – 20 October 2001) enjoyed reading spy novels and writing about guns in over a dozen books on the subject, including A Guide to Gun Collecting (1961), Guns Through the Ages (also 1961) and The British Over and Under Shotgun. In 1956 Boothoyd had read...
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Ernest Hemingway’s Six-Word Short Story “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.” – the six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway   You might...
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“For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.” – the six-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway   You might have heard that Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word short story in response to a $10 bet that so few words could make the reader cry. Hemingway won with: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never...
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1980s Birmingham – Portraits of A City Under Thee Cosh “The City Centre is unrecognisable from the 1980s. Everything is glass. Birmingham doesn’t feel like...
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“The City Centre is unrecognisable from the 1980s. Everything is glass. Birmingham doesn’t feel like home anymore.” – Richard Davis   We’re back looking at 1980s Britain’s through Richard Davis’s photographs. This time we join him in Birmingham, the country’s ‘shabby not chic‘...
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1980s Birmingham – Portraits of A City “The City Centre is unrecognisable from the 1980s. Everything is glass. Birmingham doesn’t feel like...
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“The City Centre is unrecognisable from the 1980s. Everything is glass. Birmingham doesn’t feel like home anymore.” – Richard Davis   We’re back looking at 1980s Britain’s through Richard Davis’s photographs. This time we join him in Birmingham, the country’s ‘shabby not chic‘...
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A Painted Treatise on Cats From 19th Century Thailand This manuscript containing 12 paintings of different types of cats is in the format of a samut khoi,...
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This manuscript containing 12 paintings of different types of cats is in the format of a samut khoi, a Thai folding book that opens from top to bottom. It was made in the 19th century in central Siam (now Thailand) by an unknown artist. Such folding books were typically made from...
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Maurice Sendak Illustrates William Blake’s Songs of Innocence In 1967, Maurice Sendak (June 10, 1928–May 8, 2012) created eight illustrations for William Blake’s...
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In 1967, Maurice Sendak (June 10, 1928–May 8, 2012) created eight illustrations for William Blake’s Songs of Innocence (1789). The booklet’s 275 copies were given to friends of the publisher, The Bodley Head, as Christmas gifts to mark the company’s 80th anniversary.   The idea...
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Finding The Original Drugstore Cowboy : Los Angeles In 1980 Originally the Columbia Drugstore was next to Gower Gulch at Sunset and Gower, says Meredith...
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Originally the Columbia Drugstore was next to Gower Gulch at Sunset and Gower, says Meredith Jacobson Marciano. In 1980, the coffee shop was closing forever.”The term “drugstore cowboy” came from here to mean a young wannabe whippersnapper who wanted to get into Westerns but...
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Jesus In Photos – The Mid-Century Years Early images of Jesus look not much the Jesus we see today and in the Turin Shroud. Back then he was...
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Early images of Jesus look not much the Jesus we see today and in the Turin Shroud. Back then he was bushy haired and youthful, soft-bodied like the Jesus at the Arian Baptistery, hopeful and free. The face was based on the best looking heathen gods. In the Middle Ages, Jesus...
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Oscar Newman Designs For An Atomic City Beneath Manhattan, 1969 In 1969, the Canadian-born American architect Oscar Newman (30 September 1935 – 14 April 2004)...
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In 1969, the Canadian-born American architect Oscar Newman (30 September 1935 – 14 April 2004) designed a nuclear bomb-proof city beneath Manhattan. In a vast spherical space itself created by a series of nuclear explosions, he’d build a city pretty much like the one above, with...
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Scenes From The Second City: Pictures of Birmingham 1980-1986 A while back in Trendy OK?’ – Pictures of Birmingham 1976-1987, we looked at England’s second city...
12 months ago
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12 months ago
A while back in Trendy OK?’ – Pictures of Birmingham 1976-1987, we looked at England’s second city before there was a  Selfridges or Harvey Nichols, and no Bullring as we know it today. Birmingham was a place of subway shops and underground passages that are now filled in and...
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One Last Look at the Hotel where ‘Trainspotting’, ‘The Big Man’, ‘Taggart’ and Other Shows Were... You may have never heard of the George Hotel, which once sat at the top of Buchanan Street in...
12 months ago
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12 months ago
You may have never heard of the George Hotel, which once sat at the top of Buchanan Street in Glasgow like a ‘great carbuncle’, but you have probably seen parts of its interiors from films like Trainspotting (the circular room used as a backdrop for the drug scene with Keith...
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Chris Killip and Graham Smith Photographs of England Erased (1975-1987) “I wanted to record people’s lives because I valued them. I wanted them to be remembered. If you...
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“I wanted to record people’s lives because I valued them. I wanted them to be remembered. If you take a photograph of someone they are immortalised, they’re there forever. For me that was important, that you’re acknowledging people’s lives, and also contextualising people’s...
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Browse A Fabulous Archive of England’s North-West (1885 – 1970) From 1885 to the 1970s, Edward Sankey and his sons, Raymond and Eric Sankey, photographed the...
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From 1885 to the 1970s, Edward Sankey and his sons, Raymond and Eric Sankey, photographed the north-west of England. Based at their studio on Duke Street, in Barrow-in-Furness, they captured everyday and extraordinary events. Their archive of more than 10,000 photographs is now...
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1970s Graffiti in Dirty Old Boston British bands were big in 1970s Boston. Fans of X-Ray Secs, Billy Idol, Sham 69 and the Buzzcocks...
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British bands were big in 1970s Boston. Fans of X-Ray Secs, Billy Idol, Sham 69 and the Buzzcocks sprayed the bands’ names on the city’s walls. The stories behind other graffiti photographed by Meredith Jacobson Marciano is less obvious. Were the Lesbian Turds a band? The New...
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William Gedney: Watching America At Night (1960-1973) “Once upon a time there was a pretty fly. He had a pretty wife, this pretty fly. But one day she...
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“Once upon a time there was a pretty fly. He had a pretty wife, this pretty fly. But one day she flew away, flew away. She had two pretty children, but one night these two pretty children flew away, flew away, into the sky, into the moon.” – Night of the Hunter, 1955     …...
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My ‘Homeric Retching’: Vladimir Nabokov’s Letter To His Wife About A Nasty Bout of Food Poisoning “Exactly at 2:30, I suddenly felt an urge to vomit, had barely time to run outside — and there it...
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“Exactly at 2:30, I suddenly felt an urge to vomit, had barely time to run outside — and there it began…” – Vladimir Nabokov to his wife Vera     Among Vladimir Nabokov’s love letters to his wife published in Letters to Véra, a wonderful book that takes us behind the scenes of...
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Painting America’s Great Divide : Horace Pippin And Mr. Prejudice “The pictures which I have already painted come to me in my mind, and if to me it is a worth while...
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“The pictures which I have already painted come to me in my mind, and if to me it is a worth while picture, I paint it” – Horace Pippin   Winston Churchill waved his fingers in a V for Victory and the united British went to war against a common enemy. When the United States …...
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Gritty 1980’s NYC and the Glorious Intuition of Richard Sandler “Street photography is very difficult. The number of really good pictures that you get is very small...
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“Street photography is very difficult. The number of really good pictures that you get is very small in comparison to the number of pictures taken. You’re better off, I think, letting your intuition completely run wild…” – Richard Sandler on his photographs of NYC    Richard...
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1980s NYC and the Intuition of Richard Sandler “Street photography is very difficult. The number of really good pictures that you get is very small...
a year ago
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a year ago
“Street photography is very difficult. The number of really good pictures that you get is very small in comparison to the number of pictures taken. You’re better off, I think, letting your intuition completely run wild…” – Richard Sandler on his photographs of NYC    Richard...
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Vintage T-Shirt Slogans To Offend And Amuse When we first hailed the glorious 1970s T-Shirt, you wrote in wanting to know if those...
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When we first hailed the glorious 1970s T-Shirt, you wrote in wanting to know if those iron-on-transfers were still available, like the ones sold in magazines that told us to Nuke the Whales. Retro is all the rage, as is what when Malcolm McLaren was repackaging Chucky Berry on a...
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Thai Fortune-Telling Manuscript, Before 1844 A beautiful paper accordion manuscript from Thailand that features hand-painted illustrations of...
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A beautiful paper accordion manuscript from Thailand that features hand-painted illustrations of zodiac figures accompanied with text. It was made before 1844.     “Maria Revere Balestier (daughter of Paul Revere and wife to the first American consulate to Singapore) was the...
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The 25 Best Bedroom Bands Ever – 1980s Volume 1 For Those About to Rock We Salute You – ACDC, 1981     You had it all – the hair, the sticks, the...
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For Those About to Rock We Salute You – ACDC, 1981     You had it all – the hair, the sticks, the pointy guitar, the hair, the band, the drive, the tights, the most piercing scream outside a Pee Wee Herman meets Cher Christmas convention. And you also had the hair. In the 1980s …...
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Photos of New York City Stores in 1997 New Yorker Meredith Jacobson Marciano has amassed archive of 35mm film shots, Polaroids and early...
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New Yorker Meredith Jacobson Marciano has amassed archive of 35mm film shots, Polaroids and early digital photographs in NYC from the mid to late 1970s through the early aughts, “when the city still seemed kind of old”. Much like with Peter Marshall’s pictures of London, Meredith...
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Cute and Sickly Sweet – 24 Vintage Snapshots That Invite a Reaction The girl presenting her pet lizard toad at the Children’s Pets show held on Venice Beach,...
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The girl presenting her pet lizard toad at the Children’s Pets show held on Venice Beach, California, in the mid 1930s makes for a cute photograph. Walter Chandoha’s 1955 picture of his daughter Paula with a kitten in 1955 is also cute. Angie Cook’s school photo from 1978 when...
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London Markets In The 1960s an 1970s “As long as I am alive, I will be a photographer. I will never retire” – Dorothy Bohm   Dorothy Bohm...
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“As long as I am alive, I will be a photographer. I will never retire” – Dorothy Bohm   Dorothy Bohm (22 June 1924 – 15 March 2023) was born Dorothea Israelit in June 1924 in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), to a Jewish German-speaking family. In 1939 she was...
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Teenagers at Home In the 1980s and 90s In 38 Photos “As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone...
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“As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.” ― Fran Lebowitz     We’re back looking at teenagers at home and in their bedrooms in the 1980 an 1990s. We’ve been back there before, checking our the snapshot …...
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On The Streets of America in the Early 1980s : Relaxing WIth Cigarettes And No AC ‘These photographs were made between 1979 and 1985 in a pre-digital, largely non-air-conditioned...
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‘These photographs were made between 1979 and 1985 in a pre-digital, largely non-air-conditioned era, when people fled the heat of their houses to hang out in their yards and on the street. I notice a kind of relaxed sensuality in many of the pictures. Time moved more slowly;...
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Photographing The Invisible: Things are Queer by Duane Michals (1973) “I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great...
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“I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody’s face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” —Duane Michals     Through image sequences, framing, multiple exposures,...
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William S. Burroughs: Love is The Painkiller and Cats Are the Cure “We are the cats inside. We are the cats who cannot walk alone, and for us there is only one place”...
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“We are the cats inside. We are the cats who cannot walk alone, and for us there is only one place” – William S. Burroughs   It wasn’t all writing, drug taking, walks among the mysteries, cut ups, fomenting revolution, guns and launching assaults on Soho coffee bars in a typical...
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The Wild Universe of Fletcher Hanks – The Outsider Comic Book Artist (1939-1941) Stardust, Fantomah, Big Red McLane and Space Smith. Just some of the superheroes created by American...
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Stardust, Fantomah, Big Red McLane and Space Smith. Just some of the superheroes created by American cartoonist Fletcher Hanks (December 1, 1889 – January 22, 1976) in a two-year flurry of creativity in which he wrote, penciled, inked and lettered 51 stories. As Joshua LH Burnett...
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Bernhard Leitner’s Soundcube, 1969 – The Art of Seeing Sound And Hearing With Your Whole Body In 1969 Bernhard Leitner (born 1938) created his Soundcube, an experiment into how sound moves in a...
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In 1969 Bernhard Leitner (born 1938) created his Soundcube, an experiment into how sound moves in a defined space and its effects on the human body. The Soundcube, a “sound-space object”, is a room of 64 loudspeakers in which the sound becomes a form of architecture. For Leitner,...
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New York City In Color – Garry Winogrand’s Street Shots “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed” – Gary Winogrand   In Garry...
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“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed” – Gary Winogrand   In Garry Winogrand: Winogrand Color we look at some of the New York-born photographer’s 45,000 early colour street photographs in 1950s and 1960s America.   In 1970 and Winogrand visited the...
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Highlights From Free Drawing by Franz Čižek & Herman Kastner (1925) The text book Free drawing: a way of teaching drawing based on natural and everyday objects was...
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The text book Free drawing: a way of teaching drawing based on natural and everyday objects was illustrated by artist Franz Čižek and edited by Hermann Kastner in 1925. The book features 80 plates of rich ornamental compositions.     Franz Čižek – Champion of Creative Art For...
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Found Photos: Mid-Century Soviets Standing By Their TVs In case of fire, 82% of 20th Century Americans surveyed in the pre-Internet era would rescue the TV...
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In case of fire, 82% of 20th Century Americans surveyed in the pre-Internet era would rescue the TV set. In the Soviet Union, the figure could well have been higher. When we shared found photos of Americans by their TVs (here and here). And now thanks to collectors Anna Pilipyuk...
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Rudolf Koppitz Nudes And Other Studies Photographs That Capture The Fluidity Of Nature Austrian photographer Rudolf Koppitz (4 January 1884 – 8 July 1936) was a Photo-Secessionist in...
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Austrian photographer Rudolf Koppitz (4 January 1884 – 8 July 1936) was a Photo-Secessionist in Vienna, Austria, best known for his 1925 work Bewegungsstudie (“Motion Study”) and his use of the nude in natural settings. Working with Claudia Issachenko’s dance group – the troupe...
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A Day In The Life Of C.S. Lewis – Author of The Chronicle of Narnia “I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in...
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“I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.” ― C.S. Lewis     In his 1955 book Surprised by joy : the...
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Cruising New York City With Video Blogger Nelson Sullivan In The 1980s “Thanks to his scrupulous attention, Nelson’s left behind a treasure trove of late-night videos...
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“Thanks to his scrupulous attention, Nelson’s left behind a treasure trove of late-night videos that, even more than the Warhol diaries, trenchantly capture the party years in all their gleeful decadent fun.” – Michael Musto on New York City video blogger (vlogging) Nelson...
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Identipop, Build Your Own Popstar, 1969 With Identipops you could fashion 74 press-out pieces to make ‘thousands of faces – stars and...
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With Identipops you could fashion 74 press-out pieces to make ‘thousands of faces – stars and unknowns’. The unknowns are easy to spot – but can you identify all the popstars on the game’s box design? Made in the UKL by Play Value Ltd  – they produced similar games, also from the...
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Street Scenes of NYC in the 1970s We’re back to New York City in the q970. Stories of that time in the city are legend. Copper Gangs...
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We’re back to New York City in the q970. Stories of that time in the city are legend. Copper Gangs and truants, playing on the streets of Brooklyn, big cars, tight-knit neighborhoods on the Lower East Side, subterranean fury, police on the furious beat, music and dancing with...
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Snapshots of People Meeting Abraham Lincoln “I see you have erected a very fine and handsome platform here for me, and I presume you expected me...
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“I see you have erected a very fine and handsome platform here for me, and I presume you expected me to speak from it.” ― Abraham Lincoln     The most famous statue of Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865) is the ginormous one sculpted by Daniel Chester French...
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William Blake, The Great Red Dragon Paintings “And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads....
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“And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth” — Revelations 12:3-4, King James Bible   The Red Dragon Paintings are four watercolours by...
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Cool in the Shade: One Man’s Photographs with the Stars Shade Rupe is a writer, filmmaker and actor. He has written for various film and culture magazines....
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Shade Rupe is a writer, filmmaker and actor. He has written for various film and culture magazines. A collection of his interviews, with the likes of Udo Kier, Divine, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Tura Satana, was published in the volume Dark Stars Rising: Conversations from the...
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Manhattan in 1990 – NYC Before the Clean-Up At the start of the 1990s, New York City was tired and rough By the decade’s end it had lost of some...
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At the start of the 1990s, New York City was tired and rough By the decade’s end it had lost of some of its edge – and maybe a little of its spark – but was cleaner, safer and more tourist friendly. These photograph of the city – via Watchman – show us Manhattan in … Continue...
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Women Smoking Snapshots – Touching The Sublime “Cigarettes are bad for you; that is why they are so good” – Richard Klein, Cigarettes Are Sublime  ...
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“Cigarettes are bad for you; that is why they are so good” – Richard Klein, Cigarettes Are Sublime     Richard Klein, Professor of French at Cornell University and editor of Diacritics, quit smoking while writing Cigarettes Are Sublime and has been nicotine-free ever since. So do...
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Taking A Subway Ride Through New York City In 1981 1970s New York City was where Fernando played truant, chopper gangs hogged the sidewalks, sex was...
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1970s New York City was where Fernando played truant, chopper gangs hogged the sidewalks, sex was sold, women raged in raucous nightclubs, gay rights found its voice, Madonna joined her first band, BLADE used trains as his canvas and  In 1981, 22-year-old Christopher Morris was...