Scrapping with Cecil

.

eagerly awaiting, the ultimate SCRAPbook.

from Assouline  with a delayed release date of November - It may be THE ultimate holiday  gift for purveyors of STYLE.

compiled by James Danziger of Danziger Projects in New York & former Director of Photography at the London Sunday Times Magazine, features editor of Vanity Fair, and director of Magnum New York.

ASSOLINE says:
As one of the 20th century’s most important photographers, Cecil Beaton helped invent the cult of the celebrity image while pushing the boundaries of his art form with innovative techniques and staging. In the course of his decades-long career as a photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair, as well as a British war correspondent, Cecil Beaton documented lives both famous and quotidian in dozens of scrapbooks now held by Sotheby’s London.

I can just see Cecil & Garbo "scrapping" in Beaton's living room at the Plaza Hotel, c.1964.

photograph by Dmitri Kessel, from LIFE

Garbo.

Cecil snaps a photo.

image from here

in the meanwhile read LOVING GARBO by Hugo Vickers-a- can't put it down read.
or any of the Cecil Beaton diaries from Knopf.

.

Vintage Art from the South Pacific: Paul Jacoulet's Woodblock Prints

John and I had purchased our first home in Hawaii, on Royal Circle in 2004.  Shortly after we happened to be at an art fair in Honolulu when we came upon a lone woodblock print by Paul Jacoulet sitting on the floor of a vendors stall.  It spoke to both of us from its color and composition, and by the time we were leaving the fair, we decided we had to have it.  Turns out that a well known collector of art in Honolulu was also negotiating a deal on the same piece, at that very moment, so we had to act quickly.   We told the sellers, a local Hawaiian family, that the piece would never leave the islands, that it would remain in the Pacific as long as we owned it and that clenched the deal for them.  Today, it hangs in our home, its colors as radiant as they were when it was new, and is one of the most stunning pieces we own...it also matches our home in vintage and color!

 Above is an image of the piece we own.  A young boy from the East Carolinian island of Ponape and dates from 1930.   The vibrancy of this piece is as bold today as it was 80 years ago when it was painted.  We are lucky to have found it and as it is titled 'The call of the Sea', it called out to us!

Paul Jacoulet was a French born artist, (1902-1960) is little known in this day and age, but who was a remarkable portraitist during his time.  He was the son of the French Ambassador to Japan, and was raised in Japan since childhood, and studied art as a young native born Japanese boy would have.  His immersion into Japanese life as a young man, led him to live out World War II in a Japanese countryside as a farmer, rather than return to Europe or move elsewhere in the west.  He was a childhood friend of Isamu Noguchi, the internationally acclaimed artist, having been taught english by Noguchi's mother.  He did work for the US Government at the request of General Douglas MacArthur, but more intriguingly he became a part of MacArthur's own art collection, as well as a part of Greta Garbo's and Queen Elizabeth also has a large collection of his work.  His work has been shown in leading museums around the world for decades.

This piece, from the Marianas islands shows a native islander in an amazingly detailed costume color national dress.  Note the detail on the woven mat.

Jacoulet is also recognized as one of the few western artists to have mastered the art of woodblock printing sufficiently to be recognized as a sensei (master) in Japan.  He mastered the traditional ukiyo-e style of woodblock printing as well as enhancing those techniques into his own style.  His remarkable career spanned nearly 40 years, and his subject matter, the peoples of the asian world in traditional costume in everyday poses and circumstances.  He traveled widely throughout the sparsely populated Pacific in the 20s. 30s, and 40s, often capturing local islanders and costume in vibrant colors as only a multi-process woodblock print can.  Some of the Pacific Island nations have used Jacoulet's portraits to reconstruct the imagery of their native costumes from the period, as his is the only record of such.    

Jacoulet, incidentally, was a very 'out' gay man, in a time when it was neither popular nor acceptable.  He would frequently wear kimonos and kabuki makeup while at home or while entertaining dignitaries, collectors and friends.  He was barred from entering the US in his lifetime due to his flamboyance.  Times have changed, but one thing is clear, Jacoulet's genius of color and woodblock withstands the test of time!

DEVASTATING BEAUTY : the CUT

10

 "Beauty can be isolating."

Richard Avedon

GRETA GARBO "Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening."

  

GRACE KELLY "Other women looked on me as a rival. And it pained me a great deal."

MERLE OBERON  "Without security it is difficult for a woman to look or feel beautiful."

of MARELLA AGNELLI Capote said "If they were both in Tiffany's window, Marella would be more expensive."(the other 'they' being Babe Paley.)

Pauline de Rothschild "Elegance. The most fleeting, intractable of qualities. It can be increased, but rarely bought outright."

 James Lees-Milne said of DIANA MITFORD her beauty was "the closest to Botticelli's Venus that I have ever seen."

PAUL NEWMAN "You can't be as old as I am without waking up with a surprised look on your face every morning: 'Holy Christ, whaddya know - I'm still around!' It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career."

GARY COOPER “The general consensus seems to be that I don't act at all”

Giorgi Armani said of TINA CHOW " Tina had an innate elegance and never needed any designer to do anything for her. Rather she did a lot for us."

DONYALE LUNA "Back in Detroit I wasn't considered beautiful or anything but here I'm different"



 in NO particular order-

.