Lifestyle Illustration of the 60s Paperback – August 19, 2011

I ordered this book hoping to find the authentic illustrations of the 60s and got exactly that - plus the unexpected cover to cover color pages.The 1960's gave us a fresh new look and approach to illustration and professional advertisement art. As with the revolutionary cultural rifts of the time, the freedom of expression, dynamic compositions, raw edged brush lines, exciting colors, and dramatic story telling is all here in these evocative illustrations. In today's airbrushed, super-fantasy realism we see in the form of advertisement and illustration, it is so exciting and refreshing to see the quality and power of advertisement and illustrative artists of the past! The figurative aspect of the era is beautifully represented here showing the drama and tension aligned with beauty of the everyday situations of our culture. The often narrative illustrations of contrast, mass, light, color, and form are all here and the captivating forms of the figures and expressions are beautiful. I wish that advertising and illustration schools would appreciate these particular skill sets which seem to be vacant in many of today's educational institutions. There is freedom of line, openness of space and wonderful contrasts throughout these illustrations. They not only take me back to an era I grew up with of which I can verify these illustrations with vivid validation, but they offer me an inspiration over and over again as a professional artist.The book is a dense heavy book, packed with full color illustrations on every page. the cover is stiff-high gloss and seems to be a hybrid between a hard cover and a soft, with an stiff gloss inside cover that lines the inside flap of the outer cover - all one piece. There is a small few-page introduction in the front and then a list of biographies in the back - no glossary or index. Aside from that, each page also has the year in which each illustration was created or originally published, and it also lists the artists wherever possible. Taking us through the 1960's from beginning to end, the book is an amazing visual time capsule of the era that is legendary. The only think I wish it had was environmental content. Since I am an artist that specializes in 1960s genre, with a professional background in visual and background development, I would have liked to see more of these illustrations that cover more ambient environments with structures and architectural elements. Most of the illustrations are closeups of the figure with some smattering of environment peeking through in the slim boarder of the background of the illustration. I feel like many of the illustrations are closeups and I wish that the complete illustration with cars, city streets, interior rooms, and other elements to complete the scene would have been more interesting. But clearly, the book makes a statement about the "lifestyle" which contains plenty of men and women in a variety of settings or small scenes cover page to page in this book. The relationships that seems instantly established by the illustrations are evident. But this is a trivial thing and is easily overlooked when embracing the beauty, the elegance, and the range of illustrative styles and designs of the times. The figures are expressive, emotional, and the loose stylization that this era brought to us as a culture, changed the way we looked at advertisement and illustration forever. You can see the style breakaway from 1960, where much of the style resembled the late 1950's with it's narrative ideals, to a more free-flowing expressiveness and highly stylized dynamic flat and geometrics interwoven with style, fashion, and the ever present figure. As an educator, I would recommend this book for figure painting, fashion design, illustration, advertisement, and so on. As an artist, the aforementioned applies.Even if you are not a teacher or an artist, this book still ranks as number one with me among my highly favored collections of coffee table conversation books.Rian Hughes and David Roach did the most amazing job in compiling, editing, writing, and publishing this book. Generously illustrated with tons of color pictures on every page and very little yak-yak-yak reveals that this book is a pure enjoyment of eye-candy for the viewer. It has been long over due and in need by professional artists (especially me!) to have such a great book with wonderful width and depth! Thank you for this wonderful book! I think it will make me a better artist for having found it! I can't wait for the next one!

I avoided this book series for several months--primarily because I have shelves and shelves and more shelves of reference books that barely get referenced. I started working on a series of illustrations that take inspiration from the swingin' 60s, and finally decided it was time to pick this one up. It's a friggin' fantastic reference--communicating the range of styles that informed 1960s design and illustration. I've read other reviews that indicated a good deal of this material came from a single publication, with only a little trickling in from other sources. I'm no art historian, so this may very well be the case. However, as a beautiful reference of 1960s magazine illustration (both editorial and advertising), I'm more than pleased. I even picked-up the 1950s volume as a companion to this one, and reference them almost daily as I develop my latest personal artistic viewpoint.

The media could not be loaded.  Kudos to the author for putting together this amazing collection of illustrations from the 60s. I can't imagine the amount of effort required to source and credit the thousand over pieces of art. There's a total of 576 pages so this paperback book is rather thick.The style, well, is 60s and the variety comes from the different human subjects featured and the colours. The reproduction of the paintings are good. There's a very nice textural look to them. What strikes me immediately besides the style is the use of masterful composition. The examples on composition are good enough for me to recommend this book even to lifestyle photographers who haven't any interest in paintings -- there's plenty to learn from seeing.This book should be very nostalgic for anyone working in the design industry during those times. It provides a very interesting glimpse into the the 60s pop culture.

I was impressed by this book greatly and recommend it if you enjoy seeing different illustrative work from various illustrators from the 60's. From what I read the majority of these illustrations came from assorted magazines from this era like Woman, Homes and Gardens, to others. The illustrations cover a variety of subject matter like romantic, lifestyle, or illustrative done in assorted styles and media. I recall admiring these various illustrations way back when and I'm glad a collection of this work has been collected.

Its a great book .. Yes.. The photographs of the illustrations; some of them full page... Great.. But.. There is a point.. The book is orginised in time structure.. It means, if I want to see illustrations of , for example, Bernie Fuchs; I have to look in very different pages of the book.. thats something, but small.. The book is great.!

I usually stick to comic/animation/fantasy art being the nerd that I am but this book is great if you're an Illustrator. And yes, it probably has something to do with the fact I was watching Mad Men, but it's a great look into the art styles of that time period. If you're looking for some great reference material or looking to incorporate some new tricks to your own illustrations, check this book out.

I wanted this book since I first saw it but the price for this book has skyrocketed for a reason I've been too lazy to investigate. But I lucked out and got it used, but in great condition for a lower price. The book is primarily photos of artwork, which is perfect. Simply gorgeous book.

A wonderful book that only fault (and it's a big one) is it has so little Bob Peak artwork, the artist everyone in the book is using to set the pace for the style innovations of the day. A glaring error in an other wise fabulous collection of sixties illustration.

A fat book of illustrations.The images are culled from a variety of almost entirely American magazines from the 1960's.Woman, women, American women, romantic women, lots and lots and lots of pics.a fun book to look through, perhaps a resource of fashion from that time. Mostly just a great supply of illustrations.

Will recommend! Thank you

Questo libro è composto quasi esclusivamente da illustrazioni (ve ne sono tantissime) e sono tutte una più bella dell'altra. E' un libro molto interessante sia per quanto riguarda la composizione dell'immagine, sia per quanto riguarda la tecnica di colorazione e le textures. Le illustrazioni vanno dall'inizio alla fine degli anni '60. Consiglio il libro a tutti coloro che amano lo stile di questi anni e sono interessati ad ispirarsi ai veri maestri della composizione iconografica.

Great book for artists to use for reference for layouts and compositions. Lovely collection

love every page of this book