 De Wulf makes space among French paperback artists. 
This is a nice cover for 1957's Lucile et la volupté, by Albrecht Jhonn for Les Presses de la Nuit. The woman here holding a paint brush against a blank white background looks rendered in mostly colored pencils, with a watercolor assist in the hair. We like the suggestion that she painted the author's name, but the signature that matters here is that of prolific cover artist Jef de Wulf, who signed this mostly empty piece on the lefthand edge. He and certain other French illustrators worked in a simple style compared to most of the names in U.S. paperback art, but there's a breeziness to their output that we enjoy. Obviously, French illustrators like Aslan, Jean David, René Caillé, and others are comparable to anyone, and their highly accomplished art is collectible, but French publishers were also willing to embrace this sort of sparse, spacious visual style.
 Even half covered and drained of color the art is easy to recognize.  
The famed French illustrator Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, saw his work reused in the unlikeliest places, including unlicensed on bootleg vinyl sleeves for The Cure and Joy Division. Today we thought we'd show you his art recycled in his native industry—publishing. The top cover for Ludwig Krauss's Les nuits bavaroises is from Éditions Les Presses de la Nuit and appeared in 1958, and the simplified second cover for Michel de Kerguen's Concerto pour un ange is from Les Éditions Gamma and appeared a year later. You can be sure the reworked Aslan was licensed, but none of the sites we visited seemed to realize it originated with him. So we're giving him official credit. Both covers are nice, but the first is truly brilliant.
 I look ridiculous, I know, but it’s cheaper than a chiropractor. 
Above, the cover of Lewis Simford's Mon cœur est à moi from Éditions Les Presses de la Nuit's Collection Les 4 Vents de l'Amour, or 4 Winds of Love Collection, 1958. Simford was an alias used by Jacques-Henri Juillet. But of course the reason we're sharing this is because of the art from the always brilliant Aslan, aka Alain Gourdon. See more from him here.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott
In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city's African-American population were the bulk of the system's ridership. 1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire
In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure. 1963—Warren Commission Formed
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However the long report that is finally issued does little to settle questions about the assassination, and today surveys show that only a small minority of Americans agree with the Commission's conclusions. |
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