Art Nouveau Revival 1960s-1990s
Stanley Mouse & Alton Kelly
Kathleen James | ADM-103 – The Essay | 13 January 2020 Introduction ...... 1 Social Context ...... 1 The Rise and Fall of Art Nouveau ...... 2 Origins & Revival ...... 2 Le style Mucha ...... 2 Contemporary Artists ...... 3 Kelley Mouse Studios & the Grateful dead ...... 3 Stephanie young and street art ...... 5 Bibliography ...... 7 Table of Figures ...... 7
Introduction This essay investigates the relationship between the Art Nouveau (‘new art’) movement in 1890s fin- de-siècle Paris, and its revival in 1960s San Francisco exemplified by Kelley Mouse Studio’s artwork for the Grateful Dead. Both time periods were characterised by a rejection of social norms in dress and behaviour, and the adoption of a loose, carefree lifestyle or counterculture and mind-altering substances.
Figure 1. Left: ‘Job’ poster (1896) by Alfons Mucha Right: Avalon Ballroom (1966) by Alton Kelley & Stanley Mouse
Social Context
In 1890s (the ‘Belle Époque’) Paris, Bohemianism was marked by use of absinthe, the drink of choice for the decadent, care-free and gypsy-like students and artists who lived there. The drink was assumed to be dangerously hallucinogenic which led to its prohibition early in the 20th century[1].
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 1 Seventy years on, there is a Bohemian echo in the Psychedelic/Swinging 1960s. Feminists burned their bras, in the same way as early Suffragists and Aesthetes abandoned their corsets[2]. Students and artists ‘dropped out’ to become hippies, smoke cannabis and take LSD. They abandoned straight-laced, 1950s morals to create a counter-culture of free thinking and sexuality. The Merry Pranksters, famously documented in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) included members of the rock group, the Grateful Dead and the artist Alton Kelley[3][4], who, along with Stanley ‘Mouse’ Miller designed most of the Dead’s posters and album covers.
The Rise and Fall of Art Nouveau Art Nouveau, one of many art movements of the 1890s, was relatively short-lived but popular. It manifested in diverse media: architecture, jewellery, stained glass, print, graphic illustration and so on. Concentrated in Paris, but international in scope it went under different names across Europe, e.g., Modernisme in Spain and Jugendstil in Germany[5].
This new art was notable for its use of natural forms, repeat patterns, stylised flowers, serpentine curves, and beautiful nymphs and goddesses in flowing and shocking tea-gowns[2].
In the 1960s, original posters from the era, particularly those by Alfons Mucha (see LE STYLE MUCHA below) were widely reproduced. Mucha’s ‘Job’ poster regained popularity and resumed its function as an advertisement for rolling papers – although its intended customers were probably not interested in tobacco, as suggested by the appropriated reworking in 1966 by Kelley & Mouse (Figure 1).
ORIGINS & REVIVAL Art Nouveau could be seen as a product of the Aesthetic Movement valuing beauty for its own sake, and as a commercial extension of Ruskin and Morris’s Arts & Crafts movement. Arts & Crafts was partly a reaction against cheap, mass-produced household items enabled by the Industrial Revolution in 19th century Britain. Ruskin and Morris also stressed that human labour should be joyful rather than exploitative[6]. But emphasising handmade, high-quality materials paradoxically contributed to both Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau falling out of fashion. Unaffordable artworks and furniture led to a glut of inferior products and contempt for the style.
“ 157 Committed to the quality of natural materials, Art Nouveau became too expensive to be accessible to many bourgeois housewives. Ironically, it became associated on the one hand with gaudy, cheap “gimcrack furniture,” and on the other with exquisitely crafted objects of exorbitant cost.” [7]
The revival of Art Nouveau in the 1960s was also short-lived and for similar reasons. The counter culture that supported it was devalued when iconic images (such as the yellow smiley face and peace sign) lost their original meanings.
“...what ultimately killed the sixties was the commercialization of its cultural symbols, making them into the kitsch of the seventies. (It was one thing when a hippie painted a peace sign on his face in 1967, and another thing altogether when companies started weaving peace-sign-shaped shag rugs and mass- marketing them in 1972.)”[8]
LE STYLE MUCHA Alfons Mucha, whose name became synonymous with Art Nouveau, was a Czech Socialist working in Paris in the 1890s. His pioneering formula of graceful figures with repetitive motifs became known as
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 2 ‘le style Mucha’. His poster for the play Gismonda for the actress Sarah Bernhardt (1894) catapulted him into the public eye. His work thereafter was in much demand and was widely reproduced as inexpensive prints and packaging. A hallmark of his style, the 'Mucha Q', is shown in Figure 2. By placing a figure in a circle, with drapery or hair extending out and downward, it creates a letter Q[9]. This formula was repeated successfully by Kelley & Mouse in the 1960s (Figure 3 and Figure 4).
Figure 2. Byzantine Head (‘The Blonde’) by Alfons Mucha, 1897
Contemporary Artists
KELLEY MOUSE STUDIOS & THE GRATEFUL DEAD
Figure 3. Grateful Dead (1971) by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 3 Alton Kelley (1940-2008) and Stanley Mouse (b. 1940) were collaborative commercial artists working from the 1960s in San Francisco. They designed posters and album covers for various musicians and concerts, but are primarily known for Grateful Dead artwork. The Dead, founded in the 1960s, were famous for improvisational ‘psychedelic’ music in live performances. They were creatively inspirational to a vast network of followers.
“...the Dead’s example and art encourage not just critical exegesis but mimesis, art inspiring art, from one medium to another.”[8]
Kelley and Mouse artwork uses historical sources and Art Nouveau tropes. Repeat patterns, stylised flora, whiplash curves, the Mucha Q and hand lettering are updated with ‘trippy’ bright colours to reflect the ethos of the ’60s (Figure 1, Figure 3 and Figure 4).
Figure 4. Left: Bob Weir &Rat Dog poster (2008), Stanley Mouse Right: 67 Summer of Love (1987) Collaboration by Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse et al.
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 4 STEPHANIE YOUNG AND STREET ART
Figure 5. Left: Butterfly pot by Stephanie Young (2018) Right: Lamp by Tiffany Studios (in favrile glass, c. 1910)
The beauty of Art Nouveau continues to appeal in the 21st C. (Figure 5 and Figure 6). Stephanie Young is a contemporary ceramicist and lecturer at Harvard University. She specialises in hand-carved, freehand pots using Art Nouveau curves, motifs and repeating forms. The finished pots have a Tiffany-like glow reminiscent of his patented favrile glass[10] (Figure 5). She creates the effect by layering up to a dozen glazes[11].
Art Nouveau will never disappear entirely, as shown in Canadian street art where the historic Mucha Q formula is taken to monumental new heights (Figure 6)[12].
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 5
Figure 6. Left: Our Lady of Grace (year unknown) by The Ashop crew sponsored by the City of Montreal and Prevention NDG Right: Untitled (year unknown) by street artist "Alphonse Mucha 2"
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 6 Bibliography 1. Black, R., ed. Alcohol in Popular Culture : An Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, LLC, Westport, 2010.
2. Wahl, K. Dressed as in a Painting : Women and British Aestheticism in an Age of Reform, University of New Hampshire Press, Durham, 2013.
3. Ulrich, J. The Timothy Leary Project : Inside the Great Counterculture Experiment, Abrams, 2018.
4. Wolfe, T. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, 1968
5. Dempsey, A. Styles, Schools and Movements : The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, 2011.
6. Triggs, O. L. The Arts & Crafts Movement, Parkstone International, 2009
7. [Footnote 157] Arsène Houssaye, “La Parisienne,” La Grande Dame, vol. 1 ( 1893 ) quoted in Tiersten, L. Marianne in the Market: Envisioning Consumer Society in Fin-de-sìecle France, University of California Press, 2001.
8. Meriwether, Nicholas G.., ed. Reading the Grateful Dead : A Critical Survey, Scarecrow Press, 2012.
9. Sato, T. and Mucha, S. (2015). Alphonse Mucha In Quest of Beauty. 1st ed. Czech Republic: Mucha Foundation Publishing
10. Baal-Teshuva, J., Himmelberg, W. and Manceau, S. (2001). Louis Comfort Tiffany. Köln: Taschen.
11. Young, S. http://www.calmwaterdesigns.com/me.html and https://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/people/stephanie-young
12. https://aboutartnouveau.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/art-nouveau-is-back/
Table of Figures
Frontispiece. American Beauty (1970) by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse Figure 1. Left: ‘Job’ poster (1896) by Alfons Mucha Right: Avalon Ballroom (1966) by Alton Kelley & Stanley Mouse ...... 1 Figure 2. Byzantine Head (‘The Blonde’) by Alfons Mucha, 1897 ...... 3 Figure 3. Grateful Dead (1971) by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse ...... 3
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 7 Figure 4. Left: Bob Weir &Rat Dog poster (2008), Stanley Mouse Right: 67 Summer of Love (1987) Collaboration by Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse et al...... 4 Figure 5. Left: Butterfly pot by Stephanie Young (2018) Right: Lamp by Tiffany Studios (in favrile glass, c. 1910) ...... 5 Figure 6. Left: Our Lady of Grace (year unknown) by The Ashop crew sponsored by the City of Montreal and Prevention NDG Right: Untitled (year unknown) by street artist "Alphonse Mucha 2" ... 6
Kathleen James ADM-103 The Essay - Page 8