“Because it’s so damn good!” Extracts from my exclusive interview with pioneering illustrator/photographer Jim French, who has died aged 84

Jun 18th, 2017

//Jim French. Photo: SHOWStudio//

The American illustrator and photographer Jim French – best known for his pioneering endeavours in the field of homoerotic art – has died at home in Palm Springs at the age of 84.

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Tags: Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, Colt Studios, Cowboys t-shirt, Hand In Glove, Herb Ritts, Jim French, Longhorns - Dance, Luger, Manpower, Margaret Walters, Morrissey, Philadelphia Museum School, Rip Colt, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sex Pistols, Tammis Keefe, The Male Nude, The Smiths, Tom Of Finland, Vivienne Westwood

Paul Gorman is a writer. This is his blog:
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Barney Bubbles’ 1978 letterhead for manager Jake

Barney Bubbles’ 1973 letterhead for Hawkwind’s

Barney Bubbles’ 1973 letterhead for Hawkwind’s @missstacia71.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesletterheads
#staciablake
#hawkwind
#graphicdesign

Barney Bubbles’ 1974 letterhead for company oper

Barney Bubbles’ 1974 letterhead for company operated by Hawkwind managers Doug Smith and Richard Ogden.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesletterheads
#hawkwind
#graphicdesign

Proof for an exciting new collaborative project; f

Proof for an exciting new collaborative project; full details soon.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#insearchofspace
#barneybubblesrecordsleeves
#hawkwind
#barneybubblesprints
#barneybubbleslimitededitions

The tessellated pattern applied by Barney Bubbles

The tessellated pattern applied by Barney Bubbles across both inner sleeves (2) of his packaging for Hawkwind’s Space Ritual proved a hard graphic contrast to the ‘cosmic Art Nouveau’ of the main body of the 1973 double album’s trifold sleeve (see recent posts).

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesrecordsleeves
#barneybubblespatterns

Barney Bubbles designed this 20 x 30in poster - av

This is the first time this has been published: a

This is the first time this has been published: a 1965 letter to the late Lorry Sartorio on the headed paper Colin Fulcher - later to become Barney Bubbles - and his West Kensington flatmates and fellow Twickenham art school alums Roy Burge and David Wills designed for their graphics gang A1 Good Guyz.

Living at number 1a (which was inverted to give the collective the A1 element of their name) in the mansion block Leigh Court in Avonmore Road, just behind the convention and exhibition centre Olympia, Fulcher - at the time senior graphic designer at Terence Conran’s design studio - led the trio in staging art-based happenings there.

See slide 2 for an invitation to Twickenham teacher Wentworth Shield and students to a party which would include a crit of work created on the spot. Like many of the other activities organised by Fulcher this was filmed.

See 3 for a blank sheet of the letterhead.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesletterheads
#a1goodguyz
#colinfulcher

The @barney_bubbles_estate x @noahclothing SS 2022

The @barney_bubbles_estate x @noahclothing SS 2022 Ts repurposed Barney Bubbles artworks in an utterly contemporary way:

1. This featured the image of the moon from one of the Space Ritual sleeve panels (5) on the front and Rozanov’s nihilistic quote as it appeared in the Space Ritual tour programme (6) on the back.

2. This positioned Bubbles’s abstract in the inner sleeve of Ian Dury & The Blockheads 1979 album Do It Yourself (7).

3. The T combined a monochrome rendition of the burger wrapper letterhead for Bubbles’ 1969 design studio Teenburger Designs (8) with the stark admonition ‘Don’t Join’ from advertising for Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ 1979 album Armed Forces (9).

4. Another Armed Forces element appeared on this T; one of the panels on the album’s interior fold out (10).

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesestatecollaborations
#barneybubblesrecordsleeves
#barneybubblesletterheads
@elviscostello
@ianduryofficial

Flashback to last spring when the Estate’s colla

Flashback to last spring when the Estate’s collaboration with @noahclothing dropped in the form of this mini-collection of four Ts drawing on Barney Bubbles’ rich artistic legacy.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesestatecollaborations

Such was Barney Bubbles’ design nimbleness and c

Such was Barney Bubbles’ design nimbleness and confident historicism that he could shift from channelling Alphonse Mucha for Hawkwind’s aural adventures (see recent Space Ritual post) to applying Jackson Pollock’s drip technique to the freneticism of Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ Armed Forces.

1. Proof for Live At Hollywood High, the single included in the album’s elaborate package.

2. Pollock’s 1948 work Number 14: Gray.

3. Armed Forces inner fold-out.

4. Artwork for ad for the album for British music paper Sounds, January 1979.

5. Proof for giveaway single of surplus AF tracks Talking In The Dark/Wednesday Week, 1978.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesrecordsleeves
@elviscostello

Barney Bubbles’ sleeve for Hawkwind’s 1974 rel

Barney Bubbles’ sleeve for Hawkwind’s 1974 release The Hall of the Mountain Grill is another of @arikroper’s favourite designs for @thequietus.

‘Bubbles designed things in ways that aren't intuitive to me,’ Roper tells Dan Franklin. ‘And that's what I like about it. Also, the album title positioning at the bottom: that's not something that I would do. I don't really know why he did that.

‘It's a faux pas when it comes to this stuff, because it can easily get trimmed off in the printing process. I like his angles: he does things in a lot of horizontal angles, which I do as well. There's an art deco element.’

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesrecordsleeves
#hawkwind
#hallofthemountaingrill

Barney Bubbles’ uncanny sleeve for @edgarbrough

Barney Bubbles’ uncanny sleeve for @edgarbroughton Band’s 1973 album Oora is among @arikroper’s selection of his favourite album designs for @thequietus.

Roper tells Dan Franklin: ‘It was all done by Bubbles by hand. It looks really abstract, but pleasing at the same time. I thought this was a good example of him making something that's very strangely psychedelic, almost like acid damage.

‘These people are far gone, the music is far gone, the imagery is far gone. It looks like a product of its time, where there were just no rules. And it's very hard to imagine the thought process that goes into something like that.

‘I like his style a lot, though. It's quite different from mine. So I consider him an influence, but I don't think a lot of people would notice that.’

Arik Roper’s new book is Vision of the Hawk, published by @strangeattractorpress; also just out from @whiterabbitbks is Dan Franklin’s @electricwizard.official stunner Come My Fanatics.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

The most audacious element of Barney Bubbles’ Sp

The most audacious element of Barney Bubbles’ Space Ritual fold-out programme/poster was the back cover presentation of the early 20th century Russian philosopher Vassily Rozanov’s statement:

The show is over. The audience turn to leave and put on their coats and go home. No more coats. No more homes.

Romanov wrote the words in 1917 and they were subsequently included in the collection The Apocalypse of Our Time (2).

The Belgian Situationist Raoul Vaneigem hailed the phrase as ‘the best definition of nihilism’ in his 1967 book The Revolution of Everyday Life, which was first published as Traité de savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations (3).

Its incorporation in the Situationist tracts which gained currency in the underground of the late 1960s and early 70s would have attracted Bubbles’ interest - he included the phrase in an artwork for Friends magazine in 1971 and then applied it to Hawkwind’s intentions of upsetting the daily grind through ecstatic performance.

In the early 90s a reference to Rozanov’s phrase in American rock critic Greil Marcus’s 1989 punk treatise Lipstick Traces (4) was appropriated by @christopherwoolart for paintings, drawings and billboards (5), completing the recuperation of Rozanov’s phrase.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

Just as he did for Ian Dury & The Blockheads and E

Just as he did for Ian Dury & The Blockheads and Elvis Costello and the Attractions half-a-decade later, Barney Bubbles produced a fold-out programme/poster for Hawkwind’s 1972 Space Ritual tour.

As well as Bubbles’ striking illustrations and graphics, the exercise included photography of the group’s main members and an entertaining if rambling sci-fi/semi-fictional account of the group’s activities by poet, lyricist and performer Robert Calvert (2 + 3).

He, Bubbles and other contributors such as writer Michael Moorcock received tips of the hat in the credits (detail, 4).

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#spaceritual
#hawkwind

Barney Bubbles’ representation of dancer/perform

Barney Bubbles’ representation of dancer/performance artist @missstacia71 adorned the front panel of his hugely ambitious trifold sleeve for Hawkwind’s live album Space Ritual, released 50 years ago last month.

Those familiar with the sleeve will know that once unfolded the front six panels show that the Stacia figure was emitting shockwaves across the artwork, which incorporated photography of the group in performance by Laurie Lewis and Gabi Nasemann (2).

The arresting front panel channels the Art Nouveau work of Czech painter, illustrator and graphic artist Alphonse Mucha, who was very much in vogue in post-hippie circles in the early 1970s.

British artist John Coulthart has identified elements in the Space Ritual design directly derived from Mucha’s 1900 lithograph L’Emeraude (The Emerald) (3).

The slavering beast’s head appeared in many of Mucha’s drawings and was based on armrests on one of his chairs.

L’Emeraude was in Mucha’s series
Les pierres précieuses (Precious Stones) along with representations of topaz, ruby and amethyst (4).

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

More of of the astounding responses to Barney Bubb

More of of the astounding responses to Barney Bubbles’ work produced by @bachelseagraphics student in 2010.

Wish I could provide credits - if any of you out there is responsible for individual works just holler and I’ll edit you in to this caption.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

These are some of the stunning 3D responses produc

These are some of the stunning 3D responses produced by @bachelseagraphics students to our Barney Bubbles show Process @chelseaspace in 2010.

I remember how @donaldsmithstudio and I were knocked out not only by the high standards of the individual responses but also the appreciation and understanding of Bubbles’ work shown by the students.

You’ll recognise some of the original designs from which the students took their cue, such as Punch The Clock (1), Oora (2), 4000 Weeks’ Holiday (7), Sincere Management (8), Breakfast Pirate Radio (9) and Love My Way (10).

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

The intensely patterned A and B-side labels for th

The intensely patterned A and B-side labels for the Live At Hollywood High EP provided with initial copies of @elviscostello & The Attractions’ 1979 album Armed Forces.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

Barney Bubbles’ print-ready paste-up for Nick Lo

Barney Bubbles’ print-ready paste-up for Nick Lowe & His Noise To Go’s single My Heart Hurts/Pet You And Hold You (Live), released by FBeat Records in 1982.

With Bubbles’ handwritten markup (1 and details 5, 6, 7) the artwork consists of two tracing paper overlays with Letraset (2 + 3) and artboard with photography by @tomsheehan (4).

See 8 + 9 for the finished design as it appeared on the gatefold version of the release.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
@nicklowesdog

According to the late Lorry Sartorio, this faux-la

According to the late Lorry Sartorio, this faux-laundry ticket for a summer 1965 performance by @sirrodstewart and Brian Auger’s Trinity was designed by Barney Bubbles (then Colin Fulcher) just before he joined Terence Conran’s design studio.

The gig at the Eel Pie Island Hotel was an end-of-year celebration for Twickenham Tech’s graphic design students; Sartorio, Bubbles’ girlfriend at the time, had completed her finals while he was a couple of years older so had left in 1963.

Despite the billing, @eelpiemuseum says the line-up was the prototype for Steampacket, which made its formal debut a couple of weeks later led by Stewart, Auger, Julie Driscoll and Long John Baldry.

See pic 2 for a photo of the group’s sharp-looking principals from the 2006 edition of my book The Look: Adventures in Rock & Pop Fashion.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

I’m grateful to Neil Rice for pointing out the c

I’m grateful to Neil Rice for pointing out the compositional similarities between Wes Wilson’s poster for an evening at the Fillmore headlined by Muddy Waters in November 1966 (left) and Barney Bubbles’ poster for a day headlined by Hawkwind @roundhouseldn in Feb 1975 (see 2 for original and 3 for a proof of a new edition we are planning).

Apparently this was spotted by Ben Marks of @trpsorg. Bubbles was more than aware of Wilson’s work - see 4 for a similar colour scheme applied by Wilson promoting another 1966 gig at The Fillmore.

I conducted a correspondence with Wilson - who died in 2020 aged 83 - when someone posited that he was the unidentified person on the right in the group photograph of the inhabitants of Bubbles’ house at 307 Portobello Road taken by Stafford Cliff in 1969 (5).

Wilson was really charming and agreed that it did look like him. ‘I wish that was me!’ he wrote. I sent him a bunch of Bubbles work which he loved.

I’ll be returning to the photograph soon with an exclusive on that period in Barney Bubbles’s life.

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

Instagram post 17964866543311291

Instagram post 17964866543311291

For his era-defining video for The Specials’ 198

For his era-defining video for The Specials’ 1981 number one Ghost Town, Barney Bubbles worked with regular collaborators who also contributed to the other 10 or so promos he directed.

‘He fitted in well with musicians because he was so obviously used to being around them,’ said producer Genevieve Terry.

Meanwhile the editor was Graham Whitlock and Terry’s then-husband John Davey was most often the cameraman, though was unavailable for Ghost Town so that job was taken by Dick Pope.

The Specials’ mainman Jerry Dammers came up with the idea of a nocturnal ride through the deserted capital, which Bubbles adapted and shot on location one night in the Rotherhithe Tunnel and the City of London and on the banks of the Thames.

Jools Holland loaned the 1961 Vaxhall Cresta and Pope’s camera was fastened with elastic bunjies to a wing mirror and left running.

‘At one point the car was driven down the middle of the road so we could get the central white lines, but had to swerve and the camera bounced free,’ recalled Terry.

‘Dick nearly fainted with shock but Barney was practically bouncing up and down with glee. Of course it made for a wonderful sequence.’

Terry said Bubbles’ promos were his creative response to the music rather than mere marketing tools. ‘As well as looking, he’s also hearing,’ she explained. ‘There are lots of tight shots and fascinating shapes, all simple but effective, and importantly his videos have beginnings and endings.’

And Terry told me that Bubbles’ came into his own in the edit suite. ‘Graham Whitlock was delighted to work with him,’ said Terry. ‘For a start he didn’t throw director tantrums, but in many ways this is where the films were made; he included reflected lights, interesting cutaways and used shots others might throw away.’

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate
#barneybubblesvideos
@thespecials

An NME box ad designed by Barney Bubbles for a 197

An NME box ad designed by Barney Bubbles for a 1974 Christmas gig by Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers for students at the London College of Printing (now @lcclondon).

#barneybubbles
#barneybubblesestate

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