reviews, features & interviews
Weekly Update–Richard Amsel’s Hollywood at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
By roberta
April 29, 2009 · 6 Comments
The Weekly has a Queer issue this week and I’ve got two pieces in it. Here’s the first, about Richard Amsel, this year’s featured Equality Forum artist. The show’s at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery.
Whether you’ve seen the film or not, you probably know Raiders of the Lost Ark by its sexy pulp-fiction-style poster art. What you won’t know is who created the movie’s brand—its vision of the fedora-wearing Indiana Jones cracking a whip above his head and smirking.
Richard Amsel, poster for Raiders of the Lost Ark. This and other works by Amsel are at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery.
Illustrator Richard Amsel, a Wynnewood native and 1969 University of the Arts graduate, made that poster—and many others in his 15-year career working with Hollywood movie studios. Right now, Amsel’s original drawings for the posters are featured in a retrospective exhibition at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery. The multimedia exhibit is a celebration of the artist, who died of AIDS in 1985, and an introduction to the Richard Amsel Illustration Collection, recently donated to UArts by longtime Amsel friend Dorian Hannaway.
Installation in Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery. Carpeting on the steps; red walls; a cave...high Hollywood!
The show is a labor of love by Hannaway and Joe Stewart, who designed the gallery installation. Many from the UArts community, including students and faculty from the illustration department, pitched in to mount the show. The installation transforms the gallery into a movie theater lobby: It’s part funhouse and part Franklin Institute.
Shiny black floor, trucked in from the West Coast (they couldn't find a purveyor of shiny in the Philly region!).
A black linoleum floor (trucked in from the West Coast, according to gallery director Sid Sachs) reflects the works in its shiny surface. There’s a spinning disco ball and several walls are painted circus- red. Glittery paper covers the room’s concrete pillars. An Indy alcove sits in the rear space with a cavelike archway, faux finish stone walls, a carpet and low lighting. Illustrations line the cave walls and are projected on a large monitor that plays the Raiders theme song.
The va-va-voom packaging upstages the delicate drawings, but really, it’s very much in keeping with what Amsel was about—creating an atmosphere to convey a story.
Richard Amsel's pencil drawing for The Sting poster.
Richard Amsel was a gifted prodigy acclaimed by family and teachers for his ability to draw realistic portraits. While still an undergrad he won a nationwide contest run by 20th Century Fox with his poster design for the movie Hello, Dolly! The poster was used for the movie, and that early commission opened doors for him.
Movies and movie stars were a perfect subject for Amsel, a shy guy obsessed with cinema who, in the ’70s, loved to show bootleg 16 mm films of Disney classics in his apartment while invited friends passed the popcorn and the joints.
Richard Amsel, sketch for Raiders of the Lost Ark poster
The artist had a spectacular career. In addition to Raiders and Dolly, he did the poster for the Paul Newman-Robert Redford mega-hit The Sting (1973) and was responsible for several early Bette Midler album covers and posters that helped transform the red-headed chanteuse from New York cult figure into a nationally known superstar.
Amsel flourished at a time when pencil illustrations meant real pencil on paper, and studios were looking for crisp hand-drawn images and confident, no-nonsense designs to sell their movies. Amsel delivered both—his drawings are rich and sure-footed, emphasizing the beauty and allure of the movie stars. His aesthetic is romantic, which is perfect for the romance and action adventure movies.
Richard Amsel, colored pencil, for Coal Miner's Daughter. Sometimes his work would not be used by the studio which often commissioned several artists and used what they liked best.
Amsel was acquainted with posters and art of the past and he quotes, for example, from J. C. Leyendecker’s illustrations of the “Arrow Collar Man” in his poster for The Sting. His typography is pitch-perfect, matching old-fashioned serif faces with vintage material (The Sting) and a bold advertising typeface with Raiders.
Amsel worked for magazines as well as the movies. And his best-known magazine works are the 37 covers of TV Guide magazine, all portraits of TV stars from Lucille Ball to Dan Rather. The show includes rough sketches for the magazine covers and finished drawings.
Richard Amsel's works for Bette Midler are graphically strong.
His work for Bette Midler’s album covers and posters are some of his best and stand out for their wonderful graphic sensibility. The 1973 poster for Midler’s show at the Palace (also used as her second album cover) is a three-color design using a silhouette of a Midler who vamps toward stage left in a sexy ’40s-era dress and shoes—all grace, power and attitude. It’s a bold, flat graphic that did well scaled up to billboard size. And Midler, in the show catalog, says the artist captured exactly what she was trying to convey.
Amsel’s original works are valuable today, and after his death some drawings went missing. The stolen works turn up occasionally on eBay, says Carol Hannaway, Dorian’s sister. One of the Raiders drawings on view in the show was recently recovered, Carol says, explaining that her sister uses Google alerts to find the drawings online, then pursues them through legal channels.
Several Amsel portraits, including a Lily Tomlin cover on Time Magazine (1977) and the 1973 Midler poster, are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. They represent some of the best and most iconic illustrations—and portraits—out there. Nowadays few are parsing the difference between “fine” art and commercial. All anyone wants is good—and Amsel’s art is very good indeed.
Richard Amsel: A Retrospective
Through May 14
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery
333 S. Broad St.
215.717.6000
Tags: equality forum, richard amsel, rosenwald-wolf gallery
“Nowadays few are parsing the difference between “fine” art and commercial. All anyone wants is good—and Amsel’s art is very good indeed.”
This is simply not true! This show looks like a tacky mess without irony or any class. This guy is a mediocre illustrator not worthy of the fuss. Ok. He went to Uarts. Hurrah! If an art critic on an artblog doesn’t point this out who will!!!?????
James, you are confused. I didn’t say the show was good. If you read carefully you will see I called the installation a cross between a fun house and the Franklin Institute–which conveys exactly what it’s like. If you want to call it a tacky mess go ahead. I don’t go in for name calling and I don’t see any reason to smack down the installation any further–it is what it is and I called it what it is. As for his art, it’s good and that’s what I said. I didn’t say he was Leonardo or Michaelangelo. I’m no authority on illustration but these look good to me. On what authority are you calling him a mediocre illustrator not worthy of the fuss–those are schoolyard bully words. Certainly he’s not mediocre. Come on.
I don’t feel the need to defend UArts. But I will say why shouldn’t they have a show of a successful alum whose works just got donated to them? For crying out loud, they’re a community too (not a collective but certainly a community) and they deserve to rally around one of their own.
I think James got it right and although I try to be pro-artists I share his frustration with average work being covered while so many excellent shows are not. There is too little critical real estate to go around and every time an average show is included, an excellent show is excluded. But I am starting to believe it is the place that is covered and that the art doesn’t really matter here at the artblog.
Hi, Vince, We are disappointed that your comments boil down to name calling and sour grapes. We don’t feel the need to defend ourselves but you’ve thrown dirt at us again and we just can’t stand that you are becoming a blog bully. It’s counterproductive.
We’re a blog-ocracy and we work to cover a broad range of things. But we started this blog to cover the up-and-coming young artists the printed media were missing–and sometimes still are missing. That remains our primary mission–not to cover everything, but to write about contemporary art that is breaking new, interesting ground.
We’re happy to see you got a shout out this week in the printed media. Congratulations. We haven’t crossed Sage off our list for future shows, in spite of your unkind attacks. If something compels us, we’ll try to get there if we possibly can. That’s true of any gallery in town. There’s nowhere crossed off the list.
We do prefer the art more frequently at some places, dislike it more frequently at others. But, we certainly have not covered every show at Rosenwald-Wolf. That’s pure nonsense.
If you can’t take criticism that is not cheerleading, then maybe you should turn off your comments. There is no name calling by me and I don’t think what I said was bullying at all. I guess you are injecting that tone because it is not wholly positive.
I think questioning James credibility by you, on the other hand, is pretty harsh, “On what authority are you calling him a mediocre illustrator not worthy of the fuss… ” On what authority are you calling him a good artist might be a fair come back.
The piece James and I were referencing was a piece that appeared in the Weekly and theartblog. That makes a difference that you keep trying to dance around. And you are also not addressing what the comments were about.
You opened the door on on what your mission is. The truth is that you cover mostly institutions and never miss anything at your usual places, ICAPMAPAFAUARTSTEMPLEFABRICCLAY etc., and all the art at those places is always wonderful. And you sometimes have numerous people cover the same thing over and over. Let’s face it, you are part of the establishment, not the alternative we badly need.
You do cover the young set, that is true for sure. And although they deserve attention it seems to me to be way out of balance. That is my opinion, sorry if you disagree. No one is expecting you to cover everything but I bet you that many people would like to know what are the best shows to see, the best quality work. That is what the dialog here could be about, but you don’t want to engage that line, you want to change the subject and attack. And, I stand by my comment that I believe you primarily cover places and not the artist.
Contemporary art that is breaking new ground? I don’t see it here but if you say so. And is that at the exclusion of work that is just plain good? Many art writers take this path and although it is important to cover the very few people who are really bringing something new to the party, it is only worth talking about if it is good.
I have a feeling that the “Q” word is where the real problem lies. It is a big topic and well worth talking about and on an art blog seems like a good place to have it. Any takers?
At artblog you can have any mission you want, as a writer for one of the very few media outlets that cover the arts in Philadelphia, PW, that comes with a certain amount of responsibility and calls for fair play.
Your reference to sour grapes means that I long for you to write about my work. If I did I would do like all the everyone else and lurk instead of speak my mind. I do not need artblog to validate anything I do personally. Anyone who knows me knows that I am an advocate for artists, not myself. I am only one artist out of 10 at Sage Projects and to cross the rest off the list would clearly be wrong, glad you pointed that out. BTW part of our mission at Sage is to show artists outside of our members. The next show features work by 6 artists that we feel are very strong but under-recognized that are not part of the original group.
I can tell from your post “Junto at P’unk Avenue” that there are many others in the community that feel there are problems that need to be addressed. If you didn’t attack those that make comments here then maybe you could have serious dialogs here that would be a welcomed addition to artblog.
Hi, Vince, We’re clearly talking right by each other from different reality states. So rather than waste more of our time shouting back and forth, which is how this feels to us, how about we take the conversation off line, face to face, and relocate that common ground that we know is there–a passion for community and a generosity toward fellow artists. We know you used to have that generosity and we see you still believe in it, but we’re not feeling it from you right now. And it seems you are not feeling ours. We’ll write you a note, and meanwhile, we are shutting down this fiber of the thread.