Gonzo - the Art - Hardcover

Steadman, Ralph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297823825 ISBN 13: 9780297823827

Publisher: W&N, 1998

Synopsis

Ralph Steadman's legendary partnership with American writer Hunter S.Thompson started a new style of reporting which captured the imagination of a generation and influenced a host of other writers, artists and film makers. From the late sixties, Steadman was developing a style which caught the eye of Scanlan's editor, who first teamed Steadman and Thompson to cover the Kentucky Derby. Their next collaboration, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, became one of the best selling titles of an era. Gonzo journalism ( Where the writer is a particpant in the story he is writing about ) and Gonzo art symbolized the times. This collection will be the first to show Steadman's body of work over the last 30 years. Steadman's accompanying text will place his art in it's context and time.

About this title

Review

Hunter S. Thompson, in his drunken, rambling introduction to this volume of paintings and illustrations, calls Ralph Steadman "the Albert Gore of twentieth century art". It's hard to imagine a less apt appellation: Steadman's drawings and paintings are the wild antithesis of the notoriously stiff vice president. His pop art is also the opposite of Warhol's clean lines and soulless imagery; it screams with pain and nightmare power. While Steadman is best known for his illustrations to Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other works, here his art is given free rein, and works with titles like "Earliest man, full of the sense of his own worth, screaming into the blackness, needing no god but himself..." and "Good time crucifix" combine Steadman's trademark splattered ink and unfolded figures with collage and sloppy airbrush. Although the text may offend those with no sense of irony (Thompson compares Steadman to artist manqué Adolf Hitler; Steadman relates the story of his first bowel movement), the hyperactive visuals are sure to delight even those who've never snorted ether while tripping on pure human adrenochrome. --James DiGiovanna

About the Author

RALPH STEADMAN has illustrated many books, including Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the fiftieth-anniversary edition of George Orwell's Animal Farm. He is the author of The Grapes of Ralph (for which he won a Glenfiddich Food & Drink Award), Still Life with Bottle, The Book of Jones, and Gonzo: The Art.

About this edition

• Publisher: W&N
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0297823825
• ISBN 13: 9780297823827
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208