Seeking info on Frank Zappa Cover art
Jason Max Stotter
Hello,
I am a student researching for an art history paper on Frank Zappa's
cover art. I'm having trouble finding information on the artists and
the ideas behind the art.
Can anyone point me to some good resources on paper or on the internet
covering this topic?
Specifically, I'm looking for information on:
Methods used by the artists
FZ's role in planning or creating the art and the ideas he wanted
conveyed by the art
What kind of importance FZ put on the cover art
Differences between art on different releases of the same album and
reasons for the change.
Thanks.
--
Jason Max Stotter
jmst...@tardis.svsu.edu
Geir Corneliussen
Geir Corneliussen
Jason Max Stotter wrote:
>
> Methods used by the artists
>
> FZ's role in planning or creating the art and the ideas he wanted
> conveyed by the art
>
> What kind of importance FZ put on the cover art
>
> Differences between art on different releases of the same album and
> reasons for the change.
Way deep stuff you're in,Jason.Why can't you just make a subjective view
on it.
Geir Corneliussen
Jon Naurin
Johan Wikberg writes:
>Hey guys, what albums are there? Let's make this a thread. We're Only In It
>For the Money has had a couple of covers - The Best Band You Never Heard in
>Your Life where the cover photo got pulled because Frank didn't think to
>ask the photographer's permisson or something - the various border colours
>on Chunga's Revenge :) and the early cover of, what was it, Burnt Weeny
>Sandwich?
You might be thinking of the German "Weasels" cover, green with some big
metallic monster sort of thing. I have a Swedish TV program from 1970 where FZ
gets to see this cover for the first time - he is shocked because he didn't
know it existed, but I think he thought it looked pretty OK.
Then there's the original EMI cover of "Does humour...", probably the most
boring one in the entire catalogue.
- Jon
Johan Wikberg
> I am a student researching for an art history paper
> on Frank Zappa's cover art. I'm having trouble
> finding information on the artists and the ideas
> behind the art.
You should talk to Cal Shenkel, cal...@RALF.com, who post here sometimes -
he did many of the covers, most of the early ones and some later covers.
> Differences between art on different releases of
> the same album and reasons for the change.
Hey guys, what albums are there? Let's make this a thread. We're Only In It
For the Money has had a couple of covers - The Best Band You Never Heard in
Your Life where the cover photo got pulled because Frank didn't think to
ask the photographer's permisson or something - the various border colours
on Chunga's Revenge :) and the early cover of, what was it, Burnt Weeny
Sandwich?
--- Johan <wik...@mbox301.swipnet.se>
Rcarlberg
Jason Max Stotter wrote:
>I am a student researching for an art history paper on Frank Zappa's
>cover art
May I assume you've tried the obvious choice of asking Zappa's marketing
department, the Utility Muffin Kitchen (or whatever it's called)? Address
is on the back of his releases. They probably also have put up a website,
although I've never gone looking for one.
Geir Corneliussen
Jason Max Stotter wrote:
>
> Hello,
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Jason Max Stotter
> jmst...@tardis.svsu.edu
Ok,I will give you a hand.Donald roller wilson made the '84
covers.Francesco Zappa,Them or us, and Boulez conducts zappa,I found
this online in UsA today a few weeks ago.I don't think he is online.He a
very shy person,I think.I surfed all over to find stuff about him some
time ago,but no gallery online.To bad,..he is fantastic.My favourite.And
Patricia is just like Coltrane,my dog.I am quite sure Patricia,the dog,
is
a samoyed-dog,perhaps a cross between a samoyed and another bastard.The
smile is only seen on samoyeds.They weight about 25 kilo,and are always
white,and very furry.My carpet is full of hair.I also think Patricia
would eat the cream on the 'boulez' cover,but not the watermelon,and
smoking!?Anyway..They were used by Roald Amundsen and by Fritjoft
Nansen,the famous polar-travellers,to the northpole,or was it the
southpole,or both?..Both,and also a short trip over Greenland,and back
again.There are lots of them here in norway.Patricia is 2 years old,I
think.
It's a universe some may not wish to visit. Others, including a large
bevy
of Hollywood stars, are enormous fans of the
storyteller/ artist who has
won grudging respect from the art industry.
Wilson's kinky menagerie - from Cookie the baby
orangutan to
Kathleen the cat, all painted in precise detail - is
included in his new
280-page, 200-illustration/ paintings art storybook, A
Strong Night
Wind (Wright Publishing, $70). The book's Byzantine
soap opera-like
tale can't be capsulized. It's made up of an endless
genealogy of surreal
characters and the proclivities and happenstances
shaping their world.
It helps little to know that much of the action takes
place in the home of
the reclusive Mrs. Jenkins, who had moved from New York
to
Arkansas 118 years ago and whose cigarette butts and
leftovers are
being blown about.
To further elucidate, actor-comic Robin Williams
describes the artist as
''an evangelical preacher leading the Church of the
Cross-Dressing
Chimpanzee.''
Wilson mostly keeps himself tucked away in
Fayetteville, Ark., with
wife Kathleen and poodle Judy. It's a ''simple
environment'' he prefers.
''I'm not tempted by . . . a large city. I may have
stayed by default, but
it's a blessing. I have gotten in the habit of working
because there was
nothing else to do.''
He was partly inspired, he says, by his family, which
is ''teeming with
characters.''
Those in his paintings, he says, ''do exist in my mind
. . . the narrative
content in my mind is stronger than in my painting. The
painting is
almost incidental.''
Wilson's recognizable works have hung in the Brooklyn
Museum,
Chicago Art Institute and New York's Whitney Museum.
Critical
opinion varies on such idiosyncratic work. States The
Washington Post:
''One utterly forgives the painter's self-indulgences
for one reason . . .
He is technically impeccable.''
Wilson's obvious perfectionism is partly drawn from
traditional still life
and his flowers are as voluptuous and as painstakingly
rendered as
anybody's. He's ''very attracted to French
neo-classicism, particularly
Ingres . . . but not so much beautifully dressed women
standing in front
of mantles.''
Wilson's more likely to paint an oddly unsettling
portrait of Naughty
Betty holding a giant asparagus.
Note that Wilson's characters are ''half boy and half
girl and half
Catholic and half Jewish.'' That way, he says, they can
switch to
whatever fits the scenario.
By David Zimmerman, USA TODAY
Geir Corneliussen
AMB
>Donald roller wilson made the '84
>covers.Francesco Zappa,Them or us, and Boulez conducts zappa,I found
>this online in UsA today a few weeks ago.I don't think he is online.He
a
>very shy person,I think.I surfed all over to find stuff about him some
>time ago,but no gallery online.To bad,..he is fantastic.
I agree. My dad went to school with him. Dad does impressionistic
abstract landscapes, so as you can imagine he and Roller didn't exactly
see eye to eye. Roller had a bigger influence on me, sorry Dad.
You might like to visit my online gallery at:
http://www.itouch.net/~redmonky
No soap operas, but very surreal. BTW, I have done cover and songbook
art for Steve Vai, but don't let that stop you.
-AMB