From “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens
Susanna and the Elders, 1938 by Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975)
Untitled (Poster in a Hallway), 1970 by William Eggleston (b. 1939)
Untitled, 2012 by William Eggleston (b. 1938)
Fox and Wolf (1953/1960) by Munakata Shikō (1903-1975)
A Maze of Death, first DAW printing, 1983. Cover art by Bob Pepper.
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, first Timescape printing, 1983. Cover artist uncredited.
I still regret that I failed to pick up this tattered copy of Clans of the Alphane:
Seriously though, these tasteful covers are pretty boring. Compare/contrast:
La Huida (The Flight) by Remedios Varo (1908-1963)
Still Life with Dead Hare and Falcon in a Niche, 1678 by Dirck de Bray (c. 1635-1694)
From Pierre Klossowski’s novel Roberte Ce Soir, Grove Press, 1969.
The Edge of Doom, 1838 by Samuel Colman (1832-1920)
RIP George Romero. 1978’s Martin is one of his finest—and most overlooked—films.
Voltage, 1942 by Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012)
Phoenix, 1952 by Ben Shahn (1898–1969). From Ben Shahn: His Graphic Art, George Braziller, Inc., NY 1957.
Portrait of a Youth Holding an Arrow, c. 1500 by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (c. 1466-1516)
The Gates of Hell by Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681)
From a hilarious profile on Odd Nerdrum, in which he discusses his 1997 work The Savior of Painting:
Almost life-size, it depicts the artist in a golden robe, armed with paintbrush and palette, against the soft Norwegian evening sky. On his palette is one single color: that of gold.
“This is kitsch in its purest form,” remarks the artist in front of the nearly finished work, gracefully saving us the embarrassment. “Mind you, there’s absolutely no irony here.”
The golden robe is for real. He had it made in New York a few years back, and it´s already a garment of international notoriety. His Self Portrait in Golden Robe, first exhibited in Stockholm last winter and now showing in a retrospective at the Astrup-Fearnley Museum in Oslo, shows him in this robe, which is lifted to reveal a markedly curved erection. Needless to say, the painting, done in the Rembrandt-like style that is both Odd Nerdrum’s life and his curse, caused a major debate in his home country. To Odd, that was business as usual.
