Art/Illustration style identification?

May 9, 2012 11:32 AM

Is there a name for this style of art, very popular in the early 70s? I'd like to learn more about it, or find some of the children's books I remember with that kind of illustration, but searching's hard without a search term.
posted by JanetLand to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

70s illustration?

70s graphic arts?

It's not fine art or part of any particular movement with a name. It's just a style of illustration that was popular in the 70's.

Maybe go to the library and look at some books of 70's graphic design? A big Barnes & Noble might be helpful if your local library doesn't have a good arts section. There are tons and tons of huge beautiful full-color books on every angle of graphic design you could ever think of. There's got to be something about this out there. Even running 1970s design through Amazon should turn something up.
posted by Sara C. at 11:37 AM on May 9, 2012

That's actually a bit psychedelic looking.
posted by empath at 11:40 AM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yes, psychedelic with maybe a touch of fake Art Nouveau. Both very popular at that time.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 11:43 AM on May 9, 2012

Seconding psychedelic-ish, toned down for a more mainstream audience.
posted by Quietgal at 11:44 AM on May 9, 2012

A lot of illustrators in the 60s and 70s were big fans of Aubrey Beardsley, whose decadent, elegrant, loose style of figure illustration seemed perfectly in tune with both psychedelia and the secual revolution that was going on at that time.
posted by pipeski at 11:44 AM on May 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

"Psychedelic illustration" or "psychedelic pop art" would be good places to start. It's maybe a little art nouveau influenced as well. This illustration looks like it was done with pen and watercolor/gouache, so you could also include that information in your search.
posted by milk white peacock at 11:46 AM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

the style draws heavily on the work of artist Peter Max. His work was usually called pop art, but I'm not sure if that term would also be applied to the illustration style itself. Starting from that name might help you figure it out, though.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:00 PM on May 9, 2012 [7 favorites]

Milton Glaser / Push Pin Studios did quite a lot of commercial art in this vein during that era.
posted by ROTFL at 12:45 PM on May 9, 2012

Yeah, I'd probably just call it Aubrey Beardsley inspired 70s art. Which doesn't really trip off the tongue.

Peter Max and The Yellow Submarine are probably your points of reference.
posted by Artw at 1:54 PM on May 9, 2012

Most of the above are commenting about the colors, but I noticed more the style of the drawing - the hand is closer to the "camera" and therefore larger; the lines of the body are not straight or defined (they are a bit wavy and oozing) and the background is completely filled in so that the body feels like it is in the same depth as the background. That style reminded me of the French film The Triplets of Belleville, though the colors are much more muted.

So you might tell us what about that art is the style that you like, and we may be able to find more examples.
posted by CathyG at 3:04 PM on May 9, 2012

Max himself adopted the term "Cosmic '60s" for his art, although it may not have been his coinage. This has some classic 70s overtones, but owes more to his older work, I believe (in the 70s he moved more into montage techniques).

Robert Wesley Wilson was another pychedelic poster artist with some overlap stylistically, although both are easily distinguished from each other. Heinz Edelmann, artistic director for Yellow Submarine, is a much closer match to Max.
posted by dhartung at 3:41 PM on May 9, 2012

Reminds me of the children's book, Drummer Hoff Fires It Off, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1968.
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 8:57 PM on May 9, 2012