The Official "The Studio" Appreciation Thread 0

[First Upgrade]

These pictures were acquired in a collection many years ago...

...and found one matching image during a quick Google search...were these pictures sold or widely distributed back in the day?

(Apologies for not having scanned the pictures before posting)

Edited November 28, 2019 by First Upgrade
Delekkerste

[delekkerste]

So cool.   

No love out there for The Studio?   

[Twanj]

Can someone put some names to these faces?

[Sal]

Wrightson, Kaluta, Jones and Windsor-Smith

[First Upgrade]

...from left to right, Catherine Jones (Jeff Jones), Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor Smith, Berine Wrightson...

[delekkerste]

17 minutes ago, First Upgrade said:

...from left to right, Catherine Jones (Jeff Jones), Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor Smith, Berine Wrightson...

L to R:  Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones

[Twanj]

On 1/30/2019 at 11:42 PM, First Upgrade said:

These pictures were acquired in a collection many years ago...

...and found one matching image during a quick Google search...were these pictures sold or widely distributed back in the day?

(Apologies for not having scanned the pictures before posting)

L-R Christopher Guest, James Hetfield, Dave Gilmour, Matt Smith

[PhilipB2k17]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

So cool.   

No love out there for The Studio?   

It's like an Album photo shoot for Led Zeppelin or the Who. So, yes, very cool.

[DanCooper]

On 2/1/2019 at 4:20 PM, delekkerste said:

On 2/1/2019 at 3:53 PM, First Upgrade said:

...from left to right, Catherine Jones (Jeff Jones), Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor Smith, Berine Wrightson...

L to R:  Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones

And here I thought it was a photo of the original CGC Parsipanny NJ crew - Litch, Chruscinski, Borock & Haspel

[delekkerste]

 

Let's make this the official "The Studio" appreciation thread!  

I had the privilege of being able to spend 2 1/2 hours at Michael Kaluta's pad earlier this week (we were scanning some art together for IDW).  It was fantastic to be able to ask him so many questions about his career, and to hear so many wonderful stories about how things were back in the day (especially during The Studio era).   

These guys were rock stars!  I wish somebody would make a documentary, or, even better, a biopic about them.  

[Bird]

2 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

 

Let's make this the official "The Studio" appreciation thread!  

I had the privilege of being able to spend 2 1/2 hours at Michael Kaluta's pad earlier this week (we were scanning some art together for IDW).  It was fantastic to be able to ask him so many questions about his career, and to hear so many wonderful stories about how things were back in the day (especially during The Studio era).   

These guys were rock stars!  I wish somebody would make a documentary, or, even better, a biopic about them.  

tell us a secondhand story!

[stinkininkin]

The Studio represented such an explosion of creative talent that came together in one place for a (short) period of time that I wonder if it will always have the mythical quality it represents to fans of a certain age (like me), or will it's historical importance and appreciation flicker as fandom ages out.

[NelsonAI]

A self contained Mt. Rushmore for the 1970's. 

[ESeffinga]

While not a Studio bio-pic or documentary, this documentary is both worthwhile and a bit rough on the emotions. But it is very much a must-watch for any Jeff Jones fan.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Things-Choices-Jeffrey-Catherine/dp/B00H3LLDA0

[stinkininkin]

My one complaint about the Studio involves the art book they produced in the early/mid 70's.  The design of the book was frustratingly poor, as it's an oversized book, and someone decided that all the photo's of the artists and their studio space that are peppered throughout the volumes pages would be teeny-tiny, 4 to a page, and maddening to clearly see the details of the artists work space.  I'm sure some design "genius" thought it would look cool and artsy to have all that negative space instead of full size pictures of the stuff that matters, but it was most definitely not.  Also, the glue binding of that book notoriously sucked.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the Studio book exists because it's better than nothing, but anyone else equally frustrated by that book?

[delekkerste]

5 hours ago, Bird said:

tell us a secondhand story!

He described how, out of the four of them, getting the art out of their minds/hearts/souls and onto paper/board/canvas came easiest to Jones, while the other 3 struggled at times, which made Jones feel like maybe he (using the pronouns from back in the day) wasn't suffering for his craft like an artist should, which I thought was interesting given Jones' inner conflict with gender identity and also addiction.  

He told me that Jones struggled with his masterpiece "Blind Narcissus"...he wanted to make the girl life-sized, but realized that she didn't necessarily look right to the eye when drawn to scale.  And, by definition, the objects/scenery in the foreground and background would have to not be true to size.  In any case, he seemed to have figured it out in the end!  

I mentioned to Kaluta that I was a fan of his Swords of Shahrazar illustrations (he had a few drawings from the book framed on his wall), especially "The Crimson God" (it's one of those in the PIH sale next month).  He said he was very proud of the work he did for the book, and, had a lot of satisfaction with how he drew the right hand grasping the gun in "The Crimson God". 

He said that there had been some talk about reissuing "The Studio" book (I hadn't realized that Roger Dean was the publisher of the book, and that there was a European book tour for it back in the day - like I said, rock stars!)  Though, apparently the original film or whatever has been corrupted by mold or fungus, so, they'd have to shoot it from a published copy with digital corrections/enhancements or something.  I bet it would look great!  The old book is excellent, but, the production values are very much of the time...it would look so good reissued with all the images sharpened up and in blazing full color (I would certainly buy a reissue even owning an original copy).  The bigger issue seems to be that BWS was never really satisfied with his section of the book, though, so that seems to be the major stumbling block. 

[delekkerste]

1 minute ago, stinkininkin said:

My one complaint about the Studio involves the art book they produced in the early/mid 70's.  The design of the book was frustratingly poor, as it's an oversized book, and someone decided that all the photo's of the artists and their studio space that are peppered throughout the volumes pages would be teeny-tiny, 4 to a page, and maddening to clearly see the details of the artists work space.  I'm sure some design "genius" thought it would look cool and artsy to have all that negative space instead of full size pictures of the stuff that matters, but it was most definitely not.  Also, the glue binding of that book notoriously sucked.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the Studio book exists because it's better than nothing, but anyone else equally frustrated by that book?

LOL, yes, Kaluta mentioned the binding was so poor that pages were known to explode/pop out of it. 

I was just looking through my copy last week and the production values are not what they should be.  Somebody needs to get BWS on board with doing an updated, improved reissue of it!  

Someone made an edition of like 25 hardbound copies of the book (not for public sale), of which Kaluta was gifted a copy.  Nice black hardcover with gold embossed lettering...very handsome.    

[grapeape]

On 2/1/2019 at 1:20 PM, delekkerste said:

L to R:  Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones

Exactly-----this assemblage of talent under one roof was massive! Total freaking rock stars

[jjonahjameson11]

In the pics, Kaluta seems so tall compared to the others.  I haven’t seen him in over 10 years, but he must have been 6’2 or 6’3?

[grapeape]

40 minutes ago, stinkininkin said:

My one complaint about the Studio involves the art book they produced in the early/mid 70's.  The design of the book was frustratingly poor, as it's an oversized book, and someone decided that all the photo's of the artists and their studio space that are peppered throughout the volumes pages would be teeny-tiny, 4 to a page, and maddening to clearly see the details of the artists work space.  I'm sure some design "genius" thought it would look cool and artsy to have all that negative space instead of full size pictures of the stuff that matters, but it was most definitely not.  Also, the glue binding of that book notoriously sucked.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the Studio book exists because it's better than nothing, but anyone else equally frustrated by that book?

Better than nothing but yeah, I wish we had better pics.