There are tons of books out there with current artists, annuals that reflects modern trends and visions from living artists and those who change or have changed the "art-world".
But when it comes to history, there is a smaller number of publications that appear or just new editions of classics that is a sure sale for publishers.
The Art Of Big O book with a foreword by Roger Dean is a beautifully illustrated 8.5 x 11 in. 272 page hardcover book that tells the story of The BIG 'O' publishing company that first burst upon the swinging London art and music scene during those wild and wonderful psychedelic 60s and throughout the 1970s up until 1980.
The Book is available on Amazon.This poster, calendar, art card and book publishing company produced some of the most amazing and influential fantasy and fantastic and album cover art of all time during the 20th Centuries Golden Age of Poster Art.So, the stats of the book make for an impressive coffee table enrichment. In general I´d say it is great for illustrators to get some ideas about how artists worked back in the 70ies. The works itself reflect the times in which they were created, specifically if you are going for retro/vintage inspiration, this book is for you.
Personally, I am a fan of artist stories, Interviews and biographies, this book has a good mix of everything, making sure there is not too much distraction from the artworks - great work on the editing part. The only nitpicking - if at all - is the choice of fonts used for the foreword and index.
Below you find some shots of the book for a better evaluation:
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| HR.Giger |
There is an interesting article about the story of how H.R.Giger was involved with the Big O, interesting read and definitely a large amount of works featured on 8 pages of this book that you don´t typically see in other books.
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| Jim Burns |
I knew the work of Jim Burns before and it is great to see his improvement over the span of 20 years on 7 pages.
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| Robert Venosa |
Robert Venosa´s work is totally mesmerizing, that is for sure, tons of details to look at.
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| Terry Pastor |
Terry Pastor became an instant favorite, I knew some work from a magazine, but did not recognize the name, if there is a master of vintage style and colors, he definitely is it, totally off the hook!
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| Terry Pastor |
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| Terry Pastor / Actual physical book |
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| Wayne Andersson |
I did not knew Wayne Andersson´s work before but definitely became a new favorite.
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| Wayne Andersson / Actual physical book |
