With more than three hundred illustrations by Laurent Durieux this is an impressive celebration of his work. The first few pages show posters and screen prints revealing how he was influenced by the cover art of American popular science magazines of the thirties and forties and in particular the remarkable airbrush art of Arthur Radebaugh, whose speciality was creating the look of future transport. He airbrushed a series of ads for Bohn Aluminium and on page forty-nine there is a poster showing French comedian Jacques Tati riding a streamline motorbike that Durieux copied exactly from a 1946 Bohn ad. Another influence was artist Antonio Petruccelli who illustrated many covers for the monthly Fortune and weekly Time magazines
Film posters are a favourite theme of the artist and there are plenty of them but not posters that were used to advertise the films. I think Hollywood would find them too dark and with subdued coloured titles but they work because Durieux picks on something in the film that he feels expresses the films meaning. His poster for Frank Capra's 1946 classic 'It's a wonderful life' shows the angel Clarence looking at the entrance to Potter's bank and his angel's wings are just showing underneath his raincoat. The one for 'Pulp fiction' has the film's title as the name of a diner and in the parking lot is a car with a trail of blood dripping from the boot. 'The birds' show Tippi Hedren, from the back, walking along a short jetty carrying a birdcage with a large, dark shadow of a bird over her and part of the jetty.
It was a nice surprise to find that a lot of the posters have huge enlargements of a section so it's possible to see the amount of detail Durieux puts into his work and how he uses cross-hatching to create texture and depth. Also, there are alternate versions that keep the same composition but the colours change.
If Durieux continues to create superb Photoshop poster art there will be a second book in the near future.
No comments:
Post a Comment