Guy Peellaert
Encyclopedia
Guy Peellaert
Guy Peellaert (Brussels
, Belgium
, 6 April 1934 – Paris
, France
, 17 November 2008) was a Belgian artist, painter, illustrator, comic artist and photographer, most famous for the book Rock Dreams, and his album cover
s for rock artists like David Bowie
(Diamond Dogs
) and The Rolling Stones
(It's Only Rock 'n' Roll). He also designed film posters for films like Taxi Driver
, Paris, Texas
, and Short Cuts
. The band Frankie Goes to Hollywood
took their name from Peellaert's painting, titled Frank Sinatra, which featured the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood".
, and became heavily influenced by American and British pop culture, film noir and pulp literature, before making his debut as a decorator for theaters and comic strip artist.
His style was influenced by psychedelic art
and Pop Art
. He moved to Paris
, where he worked variously in advertising, set design for the casino and the Crazy Horse nightclub, film and television. His comic strip, Les Aventures de Jodelle, was published in 1966 in the controversial French magazine Hara-Kiri
. The protagonist
, Jodelle, was modelled after singer Sylvie Vartan
. Peellart's second comic strip heroine, Pravda, made her debut in 1968 and was modelled after singer Françoise Hardy
.
In 1973, he collaborated with British rock journalist Nik Cohn
on the best-selling book Rock Dreams, which reportedly sold a million copies after it was published the following year. The book consisted of Peelaert's visual illustrations which celebrated and exaggerated the rebel heritage of pop music
and, particularly, rock and roll
, with commentary by Cohn. Many of the original artworks were bought by actor Jack Nicholson
.
After the success of Rock Dreams, Peellaert became perhaps best known for his rock album covers. He designed covers for The Rolling Stones
(It's Only Rock 'n' Roll), David Bowie
(Diamond Dogs
), Étienne Daho
(Pour nos vies martiennes), Lio
(Wandatta), and others.
He painted in a very photorealistic
style and often used pastel
. The album cover of David Bowie's Diamond Dogs
(1974) met with controversy. The cover art features Bowie as a striking half-man, half-dog grotesque. It was controversial as the full painting clearly showed the hybrid’s genitalia. Very few copies of this original cover made their way into circulation at the time of the album's release. According to the record-collector publication Goldmine price guides, these albums have been among the most expensive record collectibles of all time, as high as thousands of US dollars for a single copy. The genitalia was quickly airbrush
ed out for the 1974 LP’s gatefold sleeve, although the original artwork (and another rejected cover featuring Bowie in a cordobes hat holding onto a ravenous dog) was included in subsequent Rykodisc/EMI re-issues.
Peellaert also designed film posters for films like Taxi Driver
(by Martin Scorsese
), Short Cuts
(by Robert Altman
), L'argent
(by Robert Bresson
), Paris, Texas
and Wings of Desire
(by Wim Wenders
). He also designed programme titles for television shows on the French tv channel Antenne 2 in 1982.
Peellaert and Cohn collaborated again on 20th-Century Dreams in 1999, with illustrations of political and world historical figures.
His work has been exhibited internationally and magazines like Les Inrockuptibles
, The Guardian
and Vanity Fair
have praised his work.
He died at the age of 74 of cancer
.
Guy Peellaert (Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, 6 April 1934 – Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, 17 November 2008) was a Belgian artist, painter, illustrator, comic artist and photographer, most famous for the book Rock Dreams, and his album cover
Album cover
An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...
s for rock artists like David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
(Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs is a concept album by David Bowie, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Thematically it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world...
) and The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
(It's Only Rock 'n' Roll). He also designed film posters for films like Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
, Paris, Texas
Paris, Texas (film)
Paris, Texas is a 1984 drama film directed by Wim Wenders. The screenplay is by L.M. Kit Carson and playwright Sam Shepard, and the distinctive musical score was composed by Ry Cooder. The cinematography is by Robby Müller....
, and Short Cuts
Short Cuts
Short Cuts is a 1993 American drama film directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Robert Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver...
. The band Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Frankie Goes to Hollywood were a British dance-pop band popular in the mid-1980s. The group was fronted by Holly Johnson , with Paul Rutherford , Peter Gill , Mark O'Toole , and Brian Nash .The group's debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and...
took their name from Peellaert's painting, titled Frank Sinatra, which featured the headline "Frankie Goes Hollywood".
Biography
Peellaert was born into an aristocratic family, but left home at an early age. He studied fine arts in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, and became heavily influenced by American and British pop culture, film noir and pulp literature, before making his debut as a decorator for theaters and comic strip artist.
His style was influenced by psychedelic art
Psychedelic art
Psychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic"...
and Pop Art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
. He moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he worked variously in advertising, set design for the casino and the Crazy Horse nightclub, film and television. His comic strip, Les Aventures de Jodelle, was published in 1966 in the controversial French magazine Hara-Kiri
Hara-Kiri (magazine)
In 1960, Georges Bernier, Cavanna and Fred Aristidès created the monthly satirical magazine Hara-Kiri. Hara Kiri Hebdo, its weekly counterpart, was first published in 1969....
. The protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, Jodelle, was modelled after singer Sylvie Vartan
Sylvie Vartan
Sylvie Vartan is a French singer. She was one of the first rock girls in France. Vartan was the most productive and active of the yé-yé style artists, considered as the toughest-sounding of those. Her performance often featured elaborate show-dance choreography. She made many appearances on French...
. Peellart's second comic strip heroine, Pravda, made her debut in 1968 and was modelled after singer Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Madeleine Hardy is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style. She is married to the singer and movie actor Jacques Dutronc.-Biography:...
.
In 1973, he collaborated with British rock journalist Nik Cohn
Nik Cohn
Nik Cohn is a British rock journalist, born in London in 1946. He was brought up in Derry, in the North of Ireland, the son of historian Norman Cohn and Russian writer Vera Broido...
on the best-selling book Rock Dreams, which reportedly sold a million copies after it was published the following year. The book consisted of Peelaert's visual illustrations which celebrated and exaggerated the rebel heritage of pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and, particularly, rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, with commentary by Cohn. Many of the original artworks were bought by actor Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
.
After the success of Rock Dreams, Peellaert became perhaps best known for his rock album covers. He designed covers for The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
(It's Only Rock 'n' Roll), David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
(Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs is a concept album by David Bowie, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Thematically it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world...
), Étienne Daho
Étienne Daho
Étienne Daho is a French singer, songwriter and record producer who has released a number of synth-driven and rock-surf influenced pop hit singles since 1981.- Career :...
(Pour nos vies martiennes), Lio
Lio
Lio is a singer and actress who was a pop icon in France and Belgium during the 1980s.- Biography :...
(Wandatta), and others.
He painted in a very photorealistic
Photorealism
Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
style and often used pastel
Pastel
Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....
. The album cover of David Bowie's Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs
Diamond Dogs is a concept album by David Bowie, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Thematically it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world...
(1974) met with controversy. The cover art features Bowie as a striking half-man, half-dog grotesque. It was controversial as the full painting clearly showed the hybrid’s genitalia. Very few copies of this original cover made their way into circulation at the time of the album's release. According to the record-collector publication Goldmine price guides, these albums have been among the most expensive record collectibles of all time, as high as thousands of US dollars for a single copy. The genitalia was quickly airbrush
Airbrush
An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush.-History:...
ed out for the 1974 LP’s gatefold sleeve, although the original artwork (and another rejected cover featuring Bowie in a cordobes hat holding onto a ravenous dog) was included in subsequent Rykodisc/EMI re-issues.
Peellaert also designed film posters for films like Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
(by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
), Short Cuts
Short Cuts
Short Cuts is a 1993 American drama film directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Robert Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver...
(by Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
), L'argent
L'Argent (1983 film)
L'Argent is a 1983 French drama film directed by Robert Bresson. It is loosely inspired by the first part of Leo Tolstoy's nouvelle The Forged Coupon. It was Bresson's last film. It earned its maker the Director's Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:A young man enters his father's study...
(by Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
), Paris, Texas
Paris, Texas (film)
Paris, Texas is a 1984 drama film directed by Wim Wenders. The screenplay is by L.M. Kit Carson and playwright Sam Shepard, and the distinctive musical score was composed by Ry Cooder. The cinematography is by Robby Müller....
and Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire
Wings of Desire is a 1987 Franco-German romantic fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress...
(by Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
). He also designed programme titles for television shows on the French tv channel Antenne 2 in 1982.
Peellaert and Cohn collaborated again on 20th-Century Dreams in 1999, with illustrations of political and world historical figures.
His work has been exhibited internationally and magazines like Les Inrockuptibles
Les Inrockuptibles
Les Inrockuptibles is a French cultural magazine. Started as a monthly magazine in 1986, it became weekly in 1995. The name is a play on "Les Incorruptibles", the French title of the American television series The Untouchables...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
have praised his work.
He died at the age of 74 of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
.