Over at design blog Print, Steven Brower expands on the awesomeness of Jack Kirby by concentrating on his work in collage throughout his career, and putting it in context with “fine art” of the same period:
Kirby’s collages have little in common with Cubism or Dadaism in execution, such as those by Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray or Kurt Schwitters, but the affect of Surrealism is in clear evidence. Following the staid 1950s (at least by popular perception) the 1960s saw a return to the dreamlike qualities of Surrealism both through mainstream culture through advertising and counter-culture imagery as well. Perhaps Kirby’s collages come closest to the work of courageous anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield, whose pointed political work were intended not only to be responded to viscerally but also told a story. Then again, there are Kirby collages in existence where the original motivation remains mysterious.
April 19th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Amazing stuff — thanks for posting!
April 20th, 2012 at 9:07 am
I thought the Kirby collages were interesting but given the shoddy repro of comic books back then, they didn’t look as good as they should have. As far as what Kirby was trying to accomplish, that’s a mystery. He never went into much detail about his thought processes for particular pieces, did he?