Picturing Coney Island

Reginald Marsh, 1936
Tempera on panel, 59” x 35”
Via artchive
"I like to go to Coney Island because of the sea, the open air, and the crowds—crowds of people in all directions, in all positions, without clothing, moving—like the great compositions of Michelangelo and Rubens." --Reginald Marsh

The New York Times took yesterday’s heat as the opportunity to run its annual Coney Island photo on today’s front page. I like to think of it as just the latest installment in the long tradition of depicting the famed beach over the years.

Wegee, 1940

“… a great jammed clutter of human bodies,” was how photographer Weegee once described midsummer Coney Island.

You can see this image really large here. Read about "Weegee’s Day at the Beach" in Smithsonian and see more Coney Island images by the photographer.

Fortune has posted "To Heaven by Subway," an article about Coney Island, from its August 1938 issue. The above painting is by Robert Riggs, who illustrated the story.

From the same era as the Marsh and Riggs

paintings, is this 1932 picture by Mabel Dwight.

Via FIGURATION FÉMININE

View of the beach from the air, Life, August 12, 1940.

Via Airdee scanzen

Reginald Marsh, Coney Island Scene, c. 1932.

University of Virginia

Reginald Marsh, Coney Island Beach, etching, 1934.

C&J Goodfriend

It looks like Marsh was actually standing in the water when

he painted In the Surf, Coney Island, 1946.

Via All Art News

In extreme heat, it was as crowded under the boardwalk as it was on the beach. Weegee, 1940.

George Tooker, 1947.

Christies

Lorenzo Homar, Muscle Beach – Coney Island, 1949
Princeton Library


Daily News, July 23, 2010.

Postcard, A Typical Crowd on a Hot Day at Coney Island, N.Y.

via Cardcow.com

Good Gradations

Window drape by Rodarte for Knoll.
Remember those super-ugly blends we all made in the late 80s/early 90s, simply because we could? And then, around the turn of the millennium, there seemed to be a unanimous agreement amongst designers that dégradé was très passé. Which meant it was just a matter of time till it came back. And so it has. Much improved, I might add.

I’d like to acknowledge the new generation of blending (or “ombre” as they call it in fashion) that has been underway in recent years.

Adidas Stan Smith tennis shoes specially made by Atmos, Tokyo,
gradates from red to black.

American Apparel gift box.

“At Water’s Edge,” is the riskiest and most recent of the blends here. It is a chapbook of essays about New York’s shoreline, written by students in SVA’s D-Crit graduate program for design criticism. Walker Design leaves the safety zone of blending dark to light, and manages to successfully blend unrelated colors. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how—could be that they kept it all fairly light, or perhaps it’s the use of white typography—but they’ve kept the gradation this side of cheesy. The foil stamping is extra refreshing and modern.


Versace Atelier, Spring 2011 ombre gown.

Textile, Minä Perhonen.



I’ve also discovered some blended beauties from the pre-digital era.

Burmese art glass tumbler and saucer.

Rusty surfboard, c. late 70s.

Lake Garda, photocrom ( see older posts here and here)

It’s a good thing this length of French woven silk from the late 1800s was protected with plastic when I saw it a Brimfield, because I was absolutely drooling over it. Alas, extremely fragile and too expensive.

Peter Alexander, Green Widget, 1969, cast polyester resin.

Graphics from the Deep: Submarine Insignia by Ray Young

U.S.S. Loggerhead
Believe me, I wasn’t looking for submarine insignia, when I came across this torpedo-toting loggerhead turtle. But when I saw him in his teeny tiny sailor hat at the University of Wisconsin (Wisconsin Maritime Museum) digital archive, I knew I was meant to post it. Not only is it Memorial Day weekend, it is also Fleet Week in New York and there are sailors everywhere.

The menacing loggerhead was one of 14 submarine insignia designed by Ray Young, a product designer at the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company. Manitowoc built 28 submarines during WWII, the last 10 of which had emblems designed by Young. Due to the stealth nature of submarines, a logo is not displayed on the vessel itself, but it is printed on stationery, made into jacket patches, mess hall items, and home-port flags.

Young’s illustration talents were discovered during an in-house “bake-off,” to design the emblem for U.S.S. Kete. His piece, a fish blowing a torpedo from its mouth, was a huge hit and once other commanders saw it, he was flooded with logo requests. “I knocked out an insignia every month,” Young said in an interview with the Herald Times Reporter.

Young also designed four insignia for subs from the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut.


U.S.S. Kete


U.S.S. Kraken
This insignia for the U.S.S. Kraken earned the
distinction of “most outstanding sub insignia in World War II.”


U.S.S. Macbai


U.S.S. Menhaden


U.S.S. Lagarto commissioning party invitation


U.S.S. Corsair


U.S.S. Halfbeak

A Checkered Past: Indy 500 Program Covers

This 1981 cover featuring the top of the Borg-Warner trophy was the first to use an actual photograph.

The centennial of the Indianapolis 500 is only days away. So while you’re resting up for all that Snake Pit revelry, here’s a selection of official programs from over the years. The National Indy 500 Collector Club has every program with details going back to the Speedway’s pre- 500 races including the first race in 1909, which was a balloon race.

The programs parallel magazine trends, including book thickness and styles of cover design. There are the Art Deco illustrations of the 1930s, those illustrated montages from the 1980s, foldouts, and the requisite hologram cover. The program prices, which are prominently displayed on the covers through 2000, climb through the years from ten cents on up!

Upper left, program from the first 500 in 1911. Upper right, 2001 hologram-cover. At bottom is a foldout from 2009 by the renowned artist Thomas Kinkade.

Most of these are on eBay right now, where prices can go as high as $250.

1919
In celebration of the Allied victory in WWI, the
race was renamed the "Liberty Sweep Stakes."

1930

1931

1935

1936

1938

1946

1951

1956
From 1955 through 1975, this program cover ran
for all but two years.

1976

1979

1982

1988

1990

2003

2011
One of three covers for this year’s race.

Ryoji Ikeda: Data Jockey

Once again, the Park Avenue Armory makes the most of its vast drill hall for a commissioned work of art. In ‘Transfinite,’ Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda programs data from sources such as NASA and the Human Genome Project to create a mesmerizing, immersive, “visual and sonic environment …” Hey isn’t that what they used to call a sound & light show? Read more here.










The black, white, and gray of the Ikeda installation felt even more stark to me, having come directly from a very lively and colorful kids’ art show.
'French Toast' was one of the visual-pun sculptures fifth graders created.


Fourth graders all made collage self portraits
ala Stephen Kroninger.
There was a ‘sonic’ element to this art show too. I got to hear the school band perform a few numbers. They did an excellent rendition of Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. (Link is for the Cannonball Adderley original.)