Announcing her arrival - Richard Amsel's work for Bette Midler

 

A sketch for Midler's premier album "The Divine Miss M."

Between 1972 and 1976 the celebrated illustrator Richard Amsel produced a handful of well-regarded and influential promotional portraits of Bette Midler. These included the now iconic covers of her first two albums, images that signaled - and helped establish - her new-found status in music and popular culture. 

Album cover for "The Divine Miss M," 1972.

Album cover for "Bette Midler," 1973.

What appears to be a preliminary version/sketch of the final cover image.

The poster for Midler’s "Clams on the Half-Shell Revue," 1975.

The original artwork for the "Clams on the Half-Shell Revue"; the artist imagined her as portrayed by Vargas.

A sketch for the poster.

Record sleeve illustrations for "Songs for the New Depression," 1976.

This appears to be an unused design for a record sleeve, ND. 

*

Richard Amsel (4 December 1947, Philadelphia – 13 November 1985, New York City), American illustrator and graphic designer. His career was brief but prolific, including film posters, album covers, and magazine covers. Shortly after graduating from Philadelphia College of Art, his proposed poster art for the 1969 musical Hello, Dolly! was selected by 20th Century Fox for the film’s campaign after a nationwide talent search; the artist was only twenty-two at the time. His commissions for film posters would go on to include some of the most important and popular films of the 1970s and early 1980s, including The Champ, Chinatown, Julia, The Last Picture Show, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Sting. He also created the posters for Raiders of the Lost Ark, which ultimately became arguably his most famous work. First commissioned by TV Guide in 1972, he went on to enjoy a thirteen year association with the publication, during which time he produced more than 40 covers. Amsel's last film poster was for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and his final completed artwork was for an issue of TV Guide, featuring news anchors Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Dan Rather. He died less than three weeks later, succumbing to complications from AIDS at the age of only thirty-seven.

Portrait of Richard Amsel by Kenn Duncan for After Dark magazine, 1973.

In the world of women - genre paintings by Silvestro Lega

 

Il pergolato, 1868.

La curiosità, circa 1866.

La passeggiata in giardino, circa 1864-68.

 Le bambine che fanno le signore, 1872.

Due bambine che fanno le signore - Divertimento infantile, circa 1865. An earlier version of the previous painting.

Tra i fiori del giardino, 1862.

Il canto di uno stornello, 1868.

L'elemosina, 1864.

Signora che cuce, 1872.

In giardino, circa 1883.

Alla villa di Poggio Piano, 1888-89. This was painted late in the artist's life when his sight was extremely limited.

Lettura romantica, circa 1870.

La visita, 1868.

*

Silvestro Lega (8 December 1826, Modigliana – 21 September 1895, Florence), Italian realist painter. He was one of the leading artists of the Macchiaioli, a group of Florentine artists who were something of a precursor to the French Impressionists. Born into an affluent family, from the age of twelve he attended the Piarist College, where his artistic skill became evident. He later attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, the Luigi Mussini’s school, where the teaching emphasized the 15th-century Florentine principles and then, for some years afterwards, he attended the Scuola del Nudo of the Accademia. In 1852 he won the Concorso Trienniale dell’Accademia and, the following year, he became a member of the Accademia degli Incamminati of Modigliana. From 1861 to 1870, he lived with the Batelli family and began a relationship with the elder daughter, Virginia; the children and women of the Batelli family were frequent subjects of his paintings during this happy period of his life. In 1870, he was awarded the silver medal at the National Exposition in Parma. But in that same year, Virginia Batelli died of tuberculosis, while three of his brothers also died at about this time. He then returned to his native town of Modigliana, grieving and experiencing the onset of eye problems; he ceased painting almost entirely for four years between 1874 and 1878. In 1875, he and a partner established a modern art gallery in Florence, but it quickly failed, and Lega's financial problems worsened. He became a frequent guest of the Tommasi family, and a tutor of the sons of the family. Like the Batellis before them, the Tommasis provided the artist with a warm family environment in which he and his art could flourish. By the mid-1880s, he was almost blind. But living in the Tuscan village of Gabbro, a guest of the Bandini family, he still produced many paintings. And he had work included in the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889. He died of stomach cancer in Florence at the age of sixty-eight.

Au bain, au lit - Bed, bath, and... III