Fox Hunt and The Yellow Submarine

It’s taken sometime to process the graphic impact of Heinz Edelmann’s The Yellow Submarine.  George Dunning is credited for directing this Beatles feature film but the design was singularly birthed by Heinz Edelmann.  Unfortunately both men have passed away, but even so, I believe history has left a trail that might account for how this style developed.

The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a fusion of contemporary rock & roll and Victorian influences, including the British survival of two World Wars and the teachings of Aleister Crowley.  Producer George Martin further sweetened the mixture with classical orchestrations.  This touch of old and new sensibilities was simultaneously happening in the graphic arts of the time too.

Artists like Milton Glaser reached back into the past, recycling vestiges of Art Nouveau and the later Art Deco to create a contemporary style for the 60’s commonly called Pop Art.  Heinz Edelmann also used this template to the design the world of Pepperland for  The Yellow Submarine and caricatured the current designs with the fashionable bell-bottoms and boots of the day blown up to ridiculous proportions.  This style was pirated by lesser talents like Peter Max through out the Psychedelic era.

Now, in the world of animation Walt Disney had impacted the field to the point that everyone was becoming a clone of Walt’s graphic style which tried to emulate nature more and more.  Two filmmakers, Anthony Gross & Hector Hoppin, choose to experiment with the radically different aesthetic backlash Art Deco and the Modern Art movement was to the traditional classical representation.

 

Anthony Gross & Hector Hoppin made the Art Deco film Fox Hunt and being a British film that gained some notoriety, it’s not unreasonable to think that a young Heinz Edelmann or George Dunning might have seen it as impressionable youths.  Graphically The Yellow Submarine owes a debt to Art Deco but there are a few scenes which might point to a direct influence.  Fox Hunt has equestrian riders coming down Art Nouveau staircases very similar to the ones Ringo drives his red car down in The Yellow Submarine.  It could all be coincidental I suppose, but…  

  

Riders descending staircases in Fox Hunt

Ringo's car descending  staircases in The Yellow Submarine

I did an earlier article on Gross and Hoppin speculating that their film La Joie de Vivre may have influenced the 1940 Disney classic Fantasia.  You can find it here: https://joelbrinkerhoff.blogspot.com/2011/10/la-joie-de-vivre-influencing-fantasia.html

Heinz Edelmann, a Brief Review

I hope you all had a splendid start to your new year. With sometime till things kick in for me, I thought I would write about one of my favorite artists: Heinz Edelmann. There are many good reviews of his life and history so mine will be more about his range as an artist and the impact of his work shaping an era.

So much of the 60's was about 'change', and I think much of it led to very positive changes that are now being challenged again. I'd better stop there before going into a full blown rant on politics, but it was within this environment of experimentation and change that Edelmann influenced a generation or two with his work.

Any cursory viewing of his paintings and illustrations immediately show a diverse understanding of drawing and color, and a multiplicity of styles. Edelmann was a chameleon, always changing media and design. His commercial works show a playful and radical departure from the normal conventions in composition and layout which suited the radical changing times these publications were trying to address. This spilled over to his book illustrations which look just as fresh and exciting today, if only a little nostalgic.

It's not surprising that Heinz would be contacted by other prominent artists wanting to make an impact: The Beatles. Heinz singlehandedly created the look of Pepperland and all its residence, including monsters and mop-tops for "Yellow Submarine". It was such an arduous task that it almost killed him and he hated to talk about the experience in later years. A little taste of his discontent can be seen in the picture showing Ringo's head served on a platter, and the people of Pepperland tearing the flesh, and drinking the brains of the Blue Meanies! 

Because he was influenced by innovators and was an innovator, Heinz work became lost in the psychedelic haze of the times. Other people with louder voices started putting their stamp on the 'groovy' look and even his work on "Yellow Submarine" was for many years thought to have been done by imitator, Peter Max.

Heinz went on to teach a new generation of artists to think in radical terms.  His wide ranging abilities show a draftsman of great imagination.  Heinz Edelmann was no one trick pony, and I'm glad he left a body of work that attests to that fact.