Eye-Catching

The Family Dog ‘Gloria Swanson’ poster by Alton Kelly and Stanley MouseI love it when random Googling will turn up really interesting things. In my case it wasn’t so random, as I was doing picture research for a story on the 1920s actress Theda Bara. This amazing poster image caught my eye: for the colour and graphics, and not least for the arresting stare of Gloria Swanson.

The poster came from The Family Dog, the promotions company attached to rock-promoter Chet Helms and a bunch of other hippies who in 1966 teamed up to put on some of the ‘greatest rock events of all time’. The artists were Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly, part of the famous ‘San Francisco Five’, a group that created hundreds of the world’s definitive rock art posters. Mouse and Kelly became legendary collaborators, creating a distinctive psychedelic style of design – ‘riffing off each other’s giggle’, to quote them.

Gloria Swanson’s eyes are here advocating patrons to purchase tickets to hear Big Brother & the Holding Company, and the Sir Douglas Quintet at the evocatively named Avalon Ballroom.

Gloria Swanson, photographed by Edward Steichen, 1924As though the graphics and colours were not eye-catching enough, this picture is more than remarkable in its original form. It was taken by master photographer Edward Steichen in 1924 for Condé Nast. The taut lace forms a veil between the viewer and Swanson, obscuring her from us as the fretwork of Oriental architecture divides the inhabitants of a harem from the male gaze.

Swanson stares impassively past the net, is indifferent to us, yet we can’t look away.