Popular Culture Perceptions of the ARTIST Studio tour of Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks with Depictions of an Artist

Over the years while collecting obscure Vintage Sleaze paperbacks for a project, I accumulated a whole pallette of cruddy books based on the public perception of the passionate pleasures available to painters. Here are a few from the 1950s and 1960s...Share them all with your artist friends! See available books and affordable ebooks by Jim Linderman on BLURB.COM

Plein Air Portrait Painters

Two aspiring illustrators apply their craft outdoors.  Enjoy the Summer!

Original Real Photo Postcard inscribed on the reverse with date 1912 and
Original Snapshot inscribed on reverse with date 1953.
Collection Jim Linderman
Books and affordable ebooks by the author available HERE

Artists and their Models. Painters paint Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks

Representations of painters on paperbacks from the 1950s and 1960s. The most recognized artist in America was Norman Rockwell at the time.  These ain't him.

Painting While Hypnotized and Painting under Hypnosis

I can find virtually no artists who specialize or specialized in painting under the influence of hypnosis. I wonder why? Every manner of altered state, disability or Psychotropic drug known has been used to influence artists...as has the old stand by booze, and I do not just mean a few snifters at the opening. Some painters were drunk longer than they painted. From what little I know about hypnosis, you would think it could lead to increased concentration, wacky influences, a driven disciplined approach, who knows...so why aren't there more artists giving it a try?

Could it be that painting under hypnosis sucks?

Alter your mind and who knows what might result? In this case, what resulted is a mundane portrait with nothing trippy at all...do you suppose the artist barked like a dog or took his clothes off while under suggestion? "You are feeling VERY, VERY realistic, literal and perfectly representational today" This portrait is so straight, it could go right over the mantle in the boardroom (which it probably did,) In fact, it is so boring I would pass it by at the Salvation Army.

But wait! NO THUMB!

Don't snap your fingers until he puts one in.

Press Photograph 1963 Collection Jim Linderman



Tweet

Hitched in Hardboiled Heaven Hollywood Hi-jinks of Bellem and Barreaux

Robert Leslie Bellem did the words. Adolphe Barreaux did the art. Decades before Harvey Pekar wrote stories for others to illustrate, Bellem did the same, but his were goofy crime tales told in the Hollywood hills. Bellem was the auteur of the pulps...this one issue of Hollywood Detective is edited by Bellem, contains four articles by Bellem AND a "Dan Turner in Pictures" cartoon done by the two. It's nuts...but it works if you care to immerse yourself in one man's odd vision of fictional crime (supported by another man's vision of the scene.)

During his time, Bellem became something of a joke for his writing. 300 of his estimated 3,000 stories were about Dan Turner. S.J. Perelman satirized his work in a hilarious essay "Somewhere a Roscoe..." for the gumshoe slang he created...and he didn't have to work too hard to make it funny.

I can't put it any better than Kevin Burton Smith does on the outstanding Thrilling Detective website HERE "...it was the high-octane use of every slang word known to man (and more than a few Bellem must have coined himself) that fueled the tales. Women were wrens or frills, and their breasts were pretty-pretties or tiddlywinks, something that Dan, "as human as the next gazabo," always took the time to notice. Cars were chariots, money was geetus and no one ever got killed in the stories, they were croaked, cooled, iced, de-lifed or had an act of killery performed upon them. Guns didn't go bang – they were roscoes and they spat, coughed and belched. Or sometimes they just sneezed, though the end result was the same -- people ended up dead."

I guess when you write 3,000 stories, you reach a bit. I'm glad he did! I could spout the slang all day long and feel tough as nails, even if I am not. It is certainly no coincidence Bellem later wrote the story lines for the stilted Superman television series.

And seldom does an illustrator merge so well with a writer. Barreaux did more than draw, and was actually editor of Trojan Publications later...the company which put out Hollywood Detective. When the comics code came in and artists of his ilk were S.O.Luck and S.O. Work..he turned to producing "art" books with naked photographs of the dames he portrayed in his drawings. He even produced Bunny Yeager's Nudes!


Dan Turner Hollywood Detective (illustrated by Adolphe Barreaux, Story by Robert Leslie Bellem) from Hollywood Detective December 1944 Collection Jim Linderman

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books HERE

AMERICA'S MOST FAMOUS ARTISTS and the 100 Million Dollar Picasso

You know, the recent record-breaking sale of Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" has me thinking about investing in art, so I did a little research to make sure I didn't plunge into anything too quickly. I found a list of America's Most Famous Artists and intend to make my purchases wisely from this list.

Famous Artists Schools from "inside cover" of Inside Detective Magazine February 1964