story number 1
Another post about another artist, because there’s not much coming out of my studio these days and what is coming out comes out very, very wrong. I picked up this book at a thrift store a while ago because I recognized the author’s name. Eugene Ionesco was a playwright in the sixties who wrote in the style of the Theatre of the Absurd (thanks wikipedia).
The story is not so absurd, just a little silly. Thankfully it’s not like his other plays: “Ionesco’s plays depict in a tangible way the solitude and insignificance of human existence” (thanks again wikipedia). In the story, Josette’s mother and father are lying in bed tired and hungover (it’s always nice to read a book where the parents are real, instead of cheery cheery and never busy) and her father tells her a silly story about a girl named Jacqueline.
Everyone and everything Jacqueline knows is named jacqueline. Really not the best story–the father is hungover, cut him some slack–but the illustrations are fantastic. The colors are muted, but the pictures are still psychedelic. Etienne Delessert is the artist and a quick search on amazon came up with a couple of books he’s illustrated and I know this book is the first in a series he did with Ionesco. Anyway, I just think his pictures are great and wanted to share them with you.
more here and here if you are interested.
