Illustration for "In the sky she saw a vast shadowy figure." from “Under the Sunset” by Bram Stoker, 1882

Illustration for "Prince Zaphir slays the Giant" from “Under the Sunset” by Bram Stoker, 1882 

Artworks found thanks to Leo Boudreau.

Piero di Cosimo - Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, 1510-13 

Master of Serumido (from piero di cosimo), Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, 1500-15 

 

The Piero di Cosimo artwork was originally shared here in 2007. 

The Piero di Cosimo artwork was found thanks to Peter's flickr account. I highly recommend browsing his vast collection of mostly ancient art on up through 18th - 19th century works.

 

The Master of Serumido artwork was found on Wikipedia Commons.

 

"Wilhelm Trübner (1851 – 1917) was a German realist painter, greatly influenced by fellow artists Gustave Courbet and Wilhelm Leibl.

Trübner returns to Ancient Greece in a modern, realistic way with his 1891 work, A Gorgon’s Head. The gorgons were Ancient Greek winged female creatures with living snakes as hair and protruding tongues. They would transform to stone anyone who looked at their dreadful faces and place the stone statues in front of their cave as a warning.

Among them, the most known today is the only mortal gorgon, Medusa, killed by the demigod Perseus. Her immortal sisters were Stheno and Euryale. According to Greek mythology, the goddess Athena transformed them into terrible monsters after Medusa was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s Temple. Finding no fault in Poseidon, Athena took her rage on Medusa and on her two sisters who were siding with her. 

In spite of Trübner’s take on mythology, he doesn’t idealize or use a large-scale scene as the context for his painting. We don’t even see the gorgon’s body nor have any real indication as to which one of the three sisters he depicts. The head is hovering in space with a drowsy, satiated face expression, the snakes on her head hissing ominously. If we stare long enough at her face, we might be turned to stone." - image and quote source 

 

 Image found thanks to Peter's flickr account. I highly recommend browsing his vast collection of mostly ancient art on up through 18th - 19th century works.

Artwork found at SMK Open.

 

This illustration is reproduced in the tribute collection The Fantastic Art of Clark Ashton Smith by Dennis Rickard (Mirage Press, 1973).

 

 If you are interested in owning this original Clark Ashton Smith drawing, it is currently available through the Heritage Auctions website. It is attached to an auction in early October. The full page with all related information at the Heritage Auction website can be viewed here. 

  I previously shared the art of Clark Ashton Smith in 2006 with a thumbnail of this artwork here.

The Battle Between Good and Evil 

Lemurian Homesickness 

Witches' Sabbath 

The Adoration of Pan, 1979 

Midnight Mystery 

Ellen in Wonderland 3 - The visit to the forest with the human worms 

Ellen in Wonderland 2 - Ellen in dispute with a little harlequin 

Procession at Sunset 

Landscape with Skulls 

The Liberation of Andromeda 

Joris and the Dragon 

The Dream of the Prisoners 

The Bummer - Odysseus at Kirke 

The Dragon in Love 

Thumb Sucking 

Susanna and the Elders 

Terra Incognita 

The Ghost of Melancholy 

The Silent Walk 

Carnival of Vanity 

The Long Way 

The Floating Dream 

The Plant Angel 

Diogenes' Chess Game 

 Displaced Persons 

The Conflict 

Retrospective 

Conflict in the Mist 

Wilhelm Tell 

Worship of the God Sexis 

Oh how high are we exalted 

Finally Alone 

The Personality 

I made the impossible come true 

Inside Out 

Disgust

 Clapper Knuckle 

What do you think about marriage? 

But he doesn't mean it 

Witches' Sabbath, Drawing 

The Angel of Montparnasse 

Island of the Blind 

An Introverted Person 

Study for - The Liberation of Andromeda 

A Painful Encounter Artworks found at 

 

Artworks found at the Pathos Gallery website. A large retrospective of artworks by Johfra Bosschart will be on display starting September 21st at the Pathos Gallery in Amsterdam. 

"Pathos Gallery presents: Johfra Bosschart

A selection of works by the Dutch godfather and pioneer of surrealism and fantastic realism.

Born as Franciscus Johannes Gijsbertus van den Berg, he later in 1945 adopted the pseudonym JohFra by using the first three letters from each of his two first names in reverse order. Much of his early life was spend in The Hague. From an early age he showed great abilities in drawing and later attended lessons at the Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague.

By 1943 he had assembled a considerable body of work that he was able to mount an exhibition. Most of his early pieces were destroyed in a bombing raid during the closing years of the Second World War. One that survived is his Fantastic figure of 1942.

In German occupied Holland he had little access to the wider art world but he did obtain a Nazi propaganda magazine with an article about degenerate art. This introduced him to the imagery of Dalí, Ernst, Tanguy, and Magritte. He became especially drawn to the work of Dalí. After the war Johra was free to paint and he produced a profusion of work. His Terra Incognita of 1955 clearly demonstrated the influence of Dalí. Throughout the 1950s he created many paintings in a flowing organic style.

In 1959 Johfra travelled to Port Lligat with the intention of meeting Salvador Dalí. Their meetings were somewhat strained and strange, but Dalí took them to his studio where he showed Johfra The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus which he was then working on. Johfra, however, was rather disappointed with Dalí as he wrote in his diary "This visit left a storm of conflicting thoughts and feelings behind us. I found him repulsive yet sympathetic and tragic. An imprisoned person who is forced to be the figure that he himself has created. A victim of a world in which he is the fool, and of himself through his boundless vanity, making him impossible to break out of this situation. What I missed completely was every trace of joy and humour."

In the immediate post war years Johfra became involved with a fellow Dutch artist Diana Vanbenberg and they married in 1952. They were able to travel to Rome. Johfra held several solo exhibitions and gained some degree of financial stability. The 1950s saw the development of his mature surrealist style.

In A Spring Morning of 1957 he began to develop the tangled organic landscapes which appear in many of his later paintings. In 1967 he produced a series of four drawings on the theme of schizophrenia. Perhaps these show some influence from the symbolic language of Hieronymous Bosch and Breughel. These drawings marked a departure from his earlier surrealistic style towards a more emblematic, instructive and didactic one. This was perhaps already a component of his work, as is seen in the emblematic Son of the Snakes of 1951, but now this pictorial form became more central and his surrealist style somewhat diminishes in importance for him.

This perhaps reflects the influence of a new artistic partner in his life Ellen Lórien, whom he married in 1973. The 1970s marked an amazingly fruitful period for Johfra with the creation of many of his major pieces. It was during this period that art historian Hein Steehouwer devised the term 'Meta-Realists' for Johfra and the other artists in his circle suggesting they were depicting a realm beyond, or standing above, the real.

This was followed a year later by his Zodiac series which immediately touched the popular imagination as it appeared as illustrations in various books, and was made into large wall posters popular among the new age enthusiasts. Johfra later found this series to be a considerable burden as this became so bound to his name that his other work was unfortunately ignored. He described his works as "Surrealism based on studies of psychology, religion, the bible, astrology, antiquity, magic, witchcraft, mythology and occultism."

Johfra's legacy has been rather affected by the popularity of his 1970s Zodiac series, so much so that many of his surreal works became marginalised, however, we should view him as a significant surrealist, who shifted into a more emblematic, narrative and didactic style, in what was labelled as meta-realist, a term which he later disowned." - quote source

 

Johfra was previously shared on Monster Brains in 2009 and 2006.

The exhibition opens August 17 and continues through November 1, 2021. The exhibition is curated by historian, documentarian, and longtime Shonberg advocate Brian Chidester. It is accompanied by a catalog, the first ever exclusively devoted to Shonberg's art, with essay also by Chidester, an introduction by Minneapolis Institute of Art curator Robert Cozzolino, a director’s foreword by Steven Intermill of the Buckland, and contributions by Shonberg friend Marshall Berle, screenwriter/former Shonberg roommate Hampton Fancher, and esteemed filmmaker Roger Corman. 

 Further details can be found at the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick website. 

Additional information and imagery can be found at Burt Schonberg.net

"Burt’s work had a mystical, mysterious quality. It was perfect for capturing the evil inherent in the faces of the Usher family ancestors. I provided Burt with character histories and let his imagination roam free. In his depiction of Vivien Usher, a murderess who died in a madhouse, Burt painted a terrifying image of a woman with blacked out eyes in a haunting color scheme reminiscent of Picasso’s blue period. For Bernard Usher, a jewel thief and drug addict, Burt painted a portrait that seemed to mimic an element of double exposure photography but in a fiery psychedelic red that seemed to burn through the canvas like a Turner on acid. Burt Shonberg captured the tormented spirits of the Usher family, as well as the spirit of the entire film, perfectly. Together, we came up with one of the most unique and memorable uses of painting as a storytelling device in film: a manifestation of the subconscious malevolence lurking within Roderick Usher. A few years later, I was lucky to work with Burt again on a subsequent Poe picture, The Premature Burial. Like many other artists in Southern California in the 1960s, crossing paths with Burt Shonberg altered my artistic consciousness. He was a one of a kind visionary, and my collaboration with him remains one of my most treasured experiences." Roger Corman, July 2021 

 Burt Shonberg, Vincent Price, Roger Corman circa 1960 

 Vincent Price and Mark Damon with Burt Shonberg paintings in "The House of Usher" 1960 

Frankenstein's Monster playing the Saxophone. 1957 

Mars the God of War 1961 

The Sphinx, probably a portrait of Majorie Cameron. circa 1958 - 1961 

 Bride of Frankenstein circa 1957-58 

Title Unknown,Sphinx, possibly another portrait of Marjorie Cameron 

Title Unknown The Hermetic Sphinx 1960 

exterior of Cafe Frankenstein, Laguna Beach circa 1960 

Detail of interior of Cafe Frankenstein, Laguna Beach, California, circa 1958 

"Sin Consummations Devoutly to be wished" 1962 Commissioned by Roger Corman for the film "The Premature Burial", whereabouts unknown. 

 

Drawings Made For Gamma Magazine Vol 1 No 2 1963

  "Magical Landscape (Lucifer in the Garden) 1961 

 

"What does it look like or mean when an artist strives to show their audience the feel and look of expanded consciousness, another world they have seen and been absorbed into? is it even possible with the material tools of paint? Shonberg attempted just that, and the results transport the viewer, rhyme with the work of mediums and those who practiced astral projection, are at home in parallel dimensions to be visited in trips. He came close to presenting what that feels like with the modest tools at hand. And isn’t that what we want of artists? To collaborate with us to shift consciousness and to transport us out of the mundane reality that we face here and now? There is the suggestion in these new worlds that we have the power to change what we know is toxic on ours. " 

 Robert Cozzolino 

 Patrick and Aimee Butler Curator of Paintings 

Minneapolis Institute of Art 

 

“Burt Shonberg was more than just an artist, he was a “prospector of consciousness” who travelled to areas outside of our collective awareness and painted what he saw during those excursions” 

- Marshall Berle,former manager of Spirit and Van Halen Director and producer of “Out Here: A film About Burt Shonberg” 

"Shonberg was too strange for even the '60s California sci-fi world, and too far removed from the fine art establishment, to be embraced by either. Even today, when radical viewpoints are commonplace in the art world, Shonberg has yet to receive recognition. Meanwhile, a unique body of work remains hidden in plain sight." 

- Brian Chidester, exhibition curator 

 

This article, event details and all images were provided by Stephen Romano of  the Stephen Romano Gallery.

My friend Sean Äaberg is running a kickstarter to fund a fourth printing of his amazing "Dungeon Degenerates" role playing game. It has two days left, check it out here!

You can do what you want (Oral moral I), 1989  You do what you can (Oral moral II), 1995 
 Artworks found thanks to jean louis mazieres. 
 The official site of the artist can be viewed here.

- source

Ernst Fuchs was one of the first artists shared on this site way back in early 2006.

Artist and date unknown.

You can see additional Russian satirical magazine illustrations from early 20th century in this previous post.

"Satire on taxation, showing monsters personifying taxes devoring people in an arena, while smartly dressed people look on from above; in the background, at right, Louis Philippe and some of his ministers, including Soult, D'Argout, Madier de Montjau, Barthe and Thiers, watch from a balcony; plate 10 from La Caricature's 'Association mensuelle lithographique'. May 1833" 
 Artwork found at The British Museum.

Artwork found at Rijks Museum See more work by the artist in this previous post.

Offering to Moloch, 1908  Ambush, 1909  Girl of Pleasure, 1909  The Weird Orchestra, 1904  The Spider, 1910, Version 1  The Spider, 1910, Version 2  The Spider, 1910, Version 3  Satan's Slave, 1907  Evening Beast, 1900-22  The Grim Reaper, 1907  The Forest of Vice, 1907  Only Refuge, 1904 
 A few other works by Marcel Roux can be viewed in this previous post.
Many of these artworks were found at Rijks Museum.

Artwork found at Christies.