Andy Warhol and David Dalton [Designers]: POP ART / OP ART: TWELVE PAINTINGS FROM THE POWERS' COLLECTION! [portfolio title]. New York: Roaring Fork Press, 1966. First edition [published in ASPEN Number 3 : The Pop Art Issue]. Die cut screen printed tabbed folio sleeve housing 12 offset lithographic cards. Cards printed 4-color rectos with artists’ and collectors’ commentary to versos. Expected mild wear to the letterpress scored folds and faint offsetting to the interior of the sleeve, otherwise a fine set.
[12] 5.93 x 8.43 cards housed in a die cut sleeve. The cards reproduce artworks in the collection of John G. Powers, annotated with comments by the artists and the collector.
The cards in the folio:
John G. Powers (1920 – 2004) was known for his collection of the works of modern artists, and his knowledge about the works as well as the artists themselves. He and his wife, Kimiko, first came to Aspen in the mid-1960s when Powers retired as president of Prentiss Hall Publishing Co. in New York. They came on the invitation of Alvin Eurich, who was president of The Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies at the time. Wishing to integrate art into the Aspen community, in 1965 the Powerses and Celeste and Armand Bartos founded the Aspen Center for Contemporary Art, an artists-in-residence program. The center flourished during the summers of 1965 through 1970. During those summers, some 20 of the most avant-garde artists in the United States came to Aspen to live and work and mix with the community. Robert O. Anderson, who was then president of The Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, gave the art center studio space on the second floor of the Brand Building, which he owned.
For the uninitiated, ASPEN called itself a multimedia magazine of the arts and was originally published from 1965 to 1971. Each issue of Aspen was delivered to subscribers in a box, which contained a variety of media: printed matter in different formats, phonograph recordings, and even a reel of Super-8 film.
Aspen was conceived by Phyllis Johnson, a former editor for Women's Wear Daily and Advertising Age. While wintering in Aspen, Colorado, she got the idea for a multimedia magazine, designed by artists, that would showcase "culture along with play." So in the winter of 1965, she published her first issue. "We wanted to get away from the bound magazine format, which is really quite restrictive," said Johnson.
Each issue had a new designer and editor. "Aspen," Johnson said, "should be a time capsule of a certain period, point of view, or person." The subject matter of issue number 1 and issue number 2 stayed close to the magazine's namesake ski spa, with features on Aspen's film and music festivals, skiing, mountain wildlife, and local architecture.
If Aspen was an art director's dream, it was also an advertiser's nightmare. The ads, stashed at the bottom of the box, were easily ignored. And although Aspen was supposed to publish quarterly, in reality the publication date of each issue was as much of a surprise as the contents. "All the artists are such shadowy characters," publisher Johnson said, "that it takes months to track them down." After issue 5+6, there were no more ads in the magazine.
Perhaps Aspen was a folly, but it was a vastly pleasurable one, with a significant place in art history. The list of contributors included some of the most interesting artists of the 20th Century. And as an examplar of creative publishing, Aspen was a wonder. Its contents, however, are all but lost: few copies of Aspen have survived.
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