DATE OF THIS ** ORIGINAL ** COVER: 1934 The dynamic initiatives of art deco design, from the very early stages with Paul Poiret and Georges Lepape in Paris, capitalized upon the surging of exotica coming their way in the form of North African colonials from places like Algeria and Morocco. Soon that catchment was to include the mysterious and sexy factors to be found amongst the Equatorial populations with which France had a lot to do. Not readily endowed with such inspirational traffic, Oregon-born and San Francisco-based Frank McIntosh had to rely on magazines and movies featuring such places when he found himself commissioned to produce a long series of covers for the photo-enhanced travel, culture, business and politics publication, ASIA, in the 1920s and 1930s. Regardless of gaps with his first-hand experience of the templates of deco exotica, he moved from triumph to triumph on the basis of a true affinity for primitive glamor and surreal mystery. The output for ASIA is vast and varied, and its special qualities deserve distinct attention. First of all, there is a latent cosmopolitan sheen injected into the radiance of the wild subject, the better to capture a cosmopolitan clientele. In this regard we have: Those instances also stand as glowing examples of a compositional bravura bringing to mind great cinematography. Here are three more in that vein, which go on to flood the impact with a powerful theatricality, so much so that we have to suspect that McIntosh has got his hands on some editions of the French pochoir-enhanced fashion publication, Gazette du Bon Ton. McIntosh’s modelling skills were not confined to human subjects, but memorably lingered over wild animal subjects A final aspect of the work for ASIA is a marvellous dose of surrealist mystery and wit, in its own way rivalling Cassandre’s surrealist designs for Harper’s Bazaar. The croc pictured just above is but one glorious twist to the surrealism-for-hire mode patented by Dali. So, too, are the beauty-on-the-warpath, the Siamese Twins and the Smokin’ Percussionist pictured below. To wrap things up with a particularly delicious twist, there is the gift of McIntosh as an inspired colorist. These amazing images would be particularly effective as a suite of individually framed entities, either with the contents enclosed within the matted presentation or having the contents attached separately to the back of the framed picture. From out of a regrettably meagre amount of poster work, there is one brilliant example making us hope there are others to be discovered, somewhere, someday. Reflecting the artist’s involvement in stage-play design, there is a glistening out-of-this-world Boeing 314 Pan Am Clipper just arrived in a tropical paradise with its ecstatic passengers making their first contact with beautiful and gracious denizens of the island. Pan Am would dock at a seaside hotel facility (no doubt an entity invested in by the airline) and so these passengers are making their way directly on foot from the plane to their home away from home. (That could account for the rather Caucasian presence of the tanned locals. They are in fact tourists-gone-native or hotel staff.) The overall tone of the poster is one of wonderment about having ventured toward the Orient. Everyone is enroute to an unforgettable expansion of consciousness. In the case of the ASIA covers, a taste for mystery has become predominant, a disorientation for the Western viewer made more manageable in the reflection-friendly precincts of a magazine, as compared with the quick fix of the poster.
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DESCRIPTION OF ITEM: AN ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATED COVER (COVER ONLY) FROM VINTAGE PERIODICAL...COVER IS BEING SOLD AS-IS WITH ALL FAULTS AS SEEN IN PHOTO(S)
DATE OF ORIGINAL COVER: SEE TITLE
SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS/DESCRIPTIVE WORDS:
ILLUSTRATOR/ARTIST:
Frank McIntosh is perhaps most well known for the advertising art he produced for the Matson Line‘s cruises to Hawaii, but prior to that he designed many striking and colorful covers for Asia magazine which show the influence of the prevailing Art Deco style. A 1939 luggage sticker and ticket envelope designed for the Matson Line were followed by six menu covers which were widely collected and used for interior design at the time, and continue to be so. McIntosh was born in 1901 in Portland Oregon where he grew up before moving to San Francisco to study art, developing a special interest in stage design. He studied in New York with theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes for a year, but then turned to illustration with a long run of designs for Asia magazine, followed by his work for Matson lines. After the war the work of Eugene Savage was used on the Matson line menus. McIntosh was a collector of Asian art; in the early 1960s he had a gallery in Los Angeles dealing in Oriental paintings and accessories.
Frank H. McIntosh was born in Portland, Oregon on July 17, 1901.
After graduating from the California School of Fine Arts, McIntosh had a studio in San Francisco 1923-24. He produced much of the Matson Line's advertising art. He then continued his studies in New York City and Paris.
By the early 1930s he had moved to Los Angeles where he was on the faculty at the Chouinard Art Institute. In 1940 he had a studio in New York City.
During the 1960s he had a gallery in Los Angeles dealing with Oriental paintings and objet d'art.
He died in Santa Cruz, CA on May 29, 1985.
FRANK McINTOSH (b. 1901-?)
IMAGE SIZE: SEE PHOTO FOR DIMENSIONS ( ALL DIMENSIONS IN INCHES)
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