Over the course of his 40-year career, Alan Aldridge has been the design guru for the Beatles; a designer of gigs and album covers for the Rolling Stones, Elton John, the Who, Cream, and Led Zeppelin; the target of police prosecution for his notorious Chelsea Girls poster; the author of the bestselling children's book The Butterfly Ball ; and a graphic designer for the Hard Rock Cafe, the House of Blues, and the New York Times . Here is the definitive visual survey of the art of Alan Aldridge, whose signature style came to define the Psychedelic Era for a generation, and for generations to come. The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes charts Aldridge's extraordinary life with extraordinary images, giving the complete portrait of a graphic genius who fully expressed the spirit of his time. Brimming with the very best tripped-out, pulsating illustrations and designs culled from all corners of his varied body of work, the resulting visual feat will astonish and delight fans of all ages.
Author
Alan Aldridge was a British artist, graphic designer and illustrator. His career began in 1965 when he happened to meet the art director of Penguin Books, and began producing illustrations for book covers. Over the next two years he took over as art director, and introduced his style which resonated with the mood of the time. In 1968 he moved to his own graphic-design firm, INK, which became closely involved with graphic images for the Beatles and Apple Corps.[1] During the 1960s and 1970s he was responsible for a great many album covers, and helped create the graphic style of that era. He designed a series of science fiction book covers for Penguin Books. He made a big impression with his illustrations for the Beatles Illustrated Song lyrics. He also provided illustrations for "The Penguin Book of Comics", a history of British and American comic art. His work was characterised by a flowing, cartoony style and soft airbrushing - very much in step with the psychedelic styles of the times. In the theatre, in February 1969 he designed the graphics for controversial Jane Arden (director) play Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven at the London Arts Laboratory, Drury Lane. He is possibly best known, however, for the picture book The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper Feast (1973), a series of illustrations of anthropomorphic insects and other creatures, which he created in collaboration with William Plomer, who wrote the accompanying verses. This was based on William Roscoe's poem of the same name, but was inspired when Aldridge read that John Tenniel had told Lewis Carroll it was impossible to draw a wasp in a wig. Aldridge also created the artwork for Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy by Elton John in 1975.
