Sir Terry Frost

Sir Terry Frost RA (born Terence Ernest Manitou Frost) (1915 - 2003) was an English artist noted for his abstracts.

Born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, in 1915, he did not become an artist until he was in his 30s. During his army service in World War II, he met and was taught by Adrian Heath while a prisoner of war. Subsequently, he attended Camberwell School of Art and the St. Ives School of Art. 

In 1951, he worked as an assistant to the sculptor Barbara Hepworth. His career included teaching at the Bath Academy of Art, serving as Gregory Fellow at the University of Leeds, and teaching at the Cyprus College of Art. Later he became the artist in residence and Professor of Painting at the Department of Fine Art of the University of Reading.

In 1992, he was elected a Royal Academician and he was knighted in 1998.

He married Kathleen Clarke in 1945. They had five sons and one daughter. One of his sons, Anthony also became an artist. A second, Stephen is a comedian.

Bobby Seale

Robert George "Bobby" Seale, is another American civil rights activist and revolutionary, who along with Huey P. Newton, co-founded the Black Panther Party For Self Defense on October 15, 1966 (and see last week's post on Richard Aoki). 
He also ran for Mayor of Oakland, California.

Born to a poor African American carpenter and his wife in Dallas, Texas, on October 22, 1936, Robert George (Bobby) Seale and his family moved to Texas, before finally settling in Oakland, California during World War II. 


Attributing his failure to make the basketball and football teams to racial prejudice, Seale quit Oakland High School and joined the U.S. Air Force. After three years in the Air Force, Seale was court-martialed and given a bad conduct discharge for disobeying a colonel at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.


Seale greatly admired Malcolm X and was particularly impressed with his teachings, especially by the idea that Black people had to defend themselves against white brutality and inaccurate education. The assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 pushed them to adopt Malcolm's slogan, "Freedom by any means necessary," and Seale and Newton  founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in October 1966.

In recent years, Seale’s actions differ greatly from the radical ones of his past. In 1987, he authored a cookbook called Barbeque'n with Bobby and was also a spokesman for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. In the early 1990's Seale appeared on the TV documentary series 'Cold War' reminiscing about events in the 1960s. 
In 2002, Seale began dedicating his time to Reach!, a group focused on youth education programs. Also, he taught black studies at Temple University in Philadelphia and is currently launching an instructional, nonprofit group helping people develop the necessary techniques and tools to set up community organization within their neighborhoods.

Richard Oaki

Richard Aoki (1938 – 2009) was an American civil rights activist. He was one of the first members of the Black Panther Party and was eventually promoted to the position of Field Marshall. Although there were several Asian Americans in the Black Panther Party, Aoki was the only one to have a formal leadership position.

Aoki was born in San Leandro, California in 1938. He and his family were interned at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah from 1942 to 1945. They moved to Oakland, Ca after World War II ended. Aoki spent eight years serving in the US Army, first as a medic and later in the infantry. He attended Merritt College for two years, where he became close friends with his longtime acquaintances Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the founding members of the Black Panther Party.

The organization was founded in October 1966, one month after Aoki transferred to the University of California in Berkeley. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1968 and a Master of Social work degree in 1970.

Aoki died at his home in Berkeley from complications from dialysis. 

Aoki's life was chronicled in the 2009 documentary film, Aoki.

Viña Rock 2010

In times where the beret is declining among the younger generations, it is heartening to see that numerous rock festivals (in Spain) adopt the boina Vasca in their logo and promotions. 
Like at the largest Spanish rock festival Viña Rock 2010 in Villarrobledo. The festival organizers joined up with the  Kukuxumusu Studio to come up with this graphic design of a vulture with a beret.  

Or, how about this poster for the 2009 Petroleo Rock festival in Miranda de Ebro. 

Ramón Acín Aquilué

Ramón Acín Aquilué (1888 - 1936) Spanish anarcho-syndicalist, teacher, writer and avant-garde artist murdered by fascists in the first year of the Spanish Civil War.

From 1913 on, Acín was engaged in the Spanish anarchist movement, particularly in Barcelona and his home region of Aragón. He wrote for several anarchist magazines in Aragón and Catalonia and took part in several congresses of the anarchist labour union CGT in Huesca. 

Acín  was a non-violent anarchist and very much engaged in workers' education matter's; e.g., he gave drawing lesson's to workers in evening school courses. His own artistical works were presented in Madrid in 1931.

Until the beginning of the spanish Second Republic he was imprisioned several times for his writings and spent some time in the later 1920s in exile in France. When he won in the lottery, he gave an amount of money to Luis Buñuel for the production of  Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan, that's how he made his way into film history.  
When the spanish Civil War began, Huesca was soon taken by nationalist forces. 

Acín and his wife, Conchita Monrás, were among the many victims of illegal executions at that time. 

Bike Series #3 - The Imported Cycle Beret

Bike Series #2 - Willie G

William G. Davidson, better known as Willie G., is the grandson of William A. Davidson, one of the original founders of Harley-Davidson.

Willie G. is best known for shaking up the staid design department at Harley-Davidson with new and innovative ideas that helped usher in a new era for the Milwaukee-based company. He was part of the group of employees that bought the troubled company back from AMF and helped guide it to financial health during the 1980s.

Davidson, naturally, grew up around motorcycles. He remembers as a young child the excitement of being given rides in the sidecar of the motorcycle his father was riding. Davidson graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in graphic art and then attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

In 1963, he was asked to join the design department at Harley-Davidson and he accepted the position. Early on, Davidson often met with resistance from upper management because of the design direction he wanted to take the company. The older and more conservative managers saw young Davidson’s designs as radical and unpractical.

Davidson was promoted to Vice President of Styling in 1969. Today, Davidson, with his black beret is highly visible at numerous rallies across the country and has become a legendary symbol of the family and of Harley-Davidson.

Thanks, Andy!

And again: Bosnia

I had to question myself about it being right to post these pictures on this blog and decided that, with the respect I feel for the people pictured, yes, I can.

The Bikavac fire was an atrocity perpetrated in Bikavac, near Višegrad, eastern Bosnia, on 27 June 1992 in which at least 60 Muslim civilians, mostly women and children, were killed after the house in which they were confined was set on fire. Vasvija Bajic (left) and Ramiza Bajic Dudojevic (right) were killed during the massacre.

Zijad Subasic was a young member of the Patriotic League (PL) and the PL leader in Višegrad.  In late ‘91 and early ‘92, he and a couple of other young Bosniak men bought and transported small arms to Visegrad from Sarajevo via Gorazde. Zijad and his men managed to stop the Uzice Corps in Dobrun (outskirts of Visegrad near the Serbian border) and capture 40 “White Eagles”. They held this position for five days and thus allowing many Bosniaks in the village areas to flee.  Zijad was injured during one street fight and sent to Foča  (which was not occupied by the JNA yet). After the occupation of Foča, Zijad was taken from his hospital bed by some local Serbs from Visegrad and slaughtered on the Mehmed-Pasa Sokolovic bridge.  R.I.P.

Bosnia -again-

I wrote about Bosnia before and this post is one of the most read on this blog (thanks to webstats). And of course, there is much more to find on berets and Bosnia; most of it doesn't make very pleasant reading though. 

Alijah Izetbegovic

The Basque beret was indeed a symbol for the intellectual elite in multi-cultural Bosnia, but dominant among the Muslim (Bosniak) population. 
For the intellectuals it signified culture, 'belonging to Europe', affiliations with writers and artists; for the Muslims there was a more practical reason: when the communists came into power after 1945, the traditional Muslim fez was not outright banned, but it's use was very much discouraged (to say the least). 


Bosnian Muslims, not known for religious fundamentalism, adopted the Basque beret as a practical hat to cover their heads, suitable while performing prayers and the added bonus of keeping the Partisans happy (the beret was, of course, a partisan-symbol as well) and the percentage of Partisans among Muslims was the highest in Bosnia during WWII.  

These days, after the Yugoslav wars of the 1990's, the fez made a return in Bosnia, but still, many Bosnians (Muslim, Croats and Serbs) stay faithful to the beret. 

Iberian/Celtic Beret

This photograph of a stone carving depicting a man wearing a beret, comes from this web site on Celtic / Iberian finds.  Apart from the description (below), no information on it's age and exact origin, but if this is a real prehistoric artifact, the story of the beret's origin through Noah's arc becomes a lot more acceptable...

 "The figure is 64 cm high: the head is spherical with strong chin, straight nose and eyes bulging, the mouth is formed with incised lines. On the head a circular cap  with irregular thickness and a circumference of 56 cm. shows, very similar to a beret.The body consists of a flat block in the back and curved front of where the arms stick out in an arc coming together of 21 cm each."

Antoñón Romero - Guardian of Buenos Aires' Fishing Fleet

Antonio Romero Garcia, 'Antoñón', was born at the end of the 19th century and lived in the Customs House (formerly the "Arguardientes and Liquor Factory") in the port and grew up to become the 'guardian' of Buenos Aires' fishing fleet. 
Antoñón was an honest man, much loved by the crews of Buenos Aires' fishing boats. He died at the age of 61 years, about the same time that the fishing fleet in Buenos Aires started to diminish. But Antoñón and his beret are still remembered by the people of El Pue.

'Antoñón' (left) and skipper Vicente Gomez Meseguer with his 'excellent seadog' in the middle (in an era where dogs were still allowed to roam the fishing facilities and fish markets...).

Antoñón's family was related to the sea. His father, Manuel Romero and his brother Manolin Castilian, just 9 years old, drowned in 1947, when sailing on a boat in search to make money for the family. Antoñón, who was18 years old, couldn't do anything to save them, his own life saved as by a miracle, arriving exhausted at the edge of the riverbank. Antoñón rarely mentioned this event, but it marked him for life - staying in port, working as a link in the chain of getting the fish to the people, but not going out to fish himself anymore.

Fisherman Manuel Núñez, 'the Picha' and 'Antoñón'. Late 40's, near the building where the Fisherman's Association was located.

Wood-carved berets

These pictures of well carved Spanish peasantry come from this web site. Nice work, by Cangas del Narcea artist/carver hobbyist Julio, and exposed at all fairs in this oldest municipality in the Asturias. 

Basket weaving, tending the oxcart, playing music... and never without a txapela, of course. 

Peace in the Middle East!

Checking the stats of this web site, I found the following picture: the Israeli and Iranian flags happily next to each other. How often have you seen that?

And is there a better way to celebrate this new found peace than by showing some relevant pictures of berets? Well, both countries have a pretty poor beret-rating actually, unless you look at the over-representation of berets in their armies. 

David Ben Gurion with Ariel Sharon at the front. DBG was told to wear a beret, as not to attract attention from the enemy because of his white hair.

A veteran of the Iran-Iraqi war in anticipation of a speech by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. 

Bike Series #1 - The Wall of Death

Bicycles and motorbikes are so intertwined with the beret that I might as well start a series of Bikes & Berets. The first reference to bikes comes from fellow beret-enthusiast Ron Greer:

"I wear my beret year round. It's great in the rain, shades my head in the summer and I used to wear it as my bike hat; until the city mandated helmets. Darn!"

I couldn't agree more! Luckily, there are still many countries where one can wear a beret while cycling around without having to keep an eye out for the cops. Not New Zealand, but my native Holland , for example (but that's for a later post). 
A beret on a motorbike may be pushing it a bit far, but still, it wasn't that unusual (and these days, is there any headgear easier to take along in your pocket than a beret while wearing a helmet?).

One group of bikers who adopted the beret were the riders on the Wall of Death. The Wall of Death or motordrome is a carnival sideshow featuring a drum- or barrel-shaped wooden cylinder, ranging from 20 to 36-feet in diameter, in which stunt motorcyclists ride and carry out tricks. Derived directly from US motorcycle boardtrack (motordrome) racing in the early 1900s, the very first carnival motordrome appeared at Coney Island amusement park (New York) in 1911. The following year portable tracks began to appear on traveling carnivals and in 1915, the first "silodromes" with perpendicular walls were seen. These motordromes with perfectly straight walls were soon dubbed the "Wall of Death". This carnival attraction became a staple in the US outdoor entertainment industry with the phenomenon reaching its zenith in the 1930s with more than 100 motordromes on traveling shows and in amusement parks. In 2004, six or seven of these motorcycle shows were still touring the US. The first known Wall of Death in the UK appeared in 1929 at Southend, "Tornado Smith" (and his lion) being one of the star attractions..

 

  

Italian Grandfathers and the Montejurra Incidents

A few days ago, I read an interesting post on the Fedora Lounge:


"...my grandfather lived for a period of his life in Paris (in the '20s-'30s of the past century...)

well, he wore a beret...
but not only he wear it; he (as one of his friends taught him to do) used to walk with the beret in his hand, while hiding a gun inside the beret...

you know, petty crimes and stuff. Real story."

Just now, researching post-Franco activism, I came upon this article and photograph on a Belgian web site (in Dutch, sorry). It instantly reminded me of the grandfather mentioned above, just an association of the mind really, as they've got nothing to do with each other and this being far from petty crimes, of course. It's the handgun, the Italian connection.., interesting enough to share.


The article translate more or less as follows:
José Luis Marín García Verde, "el hombre de la dina gabardine", the man in the raincoat, keeps his gun at the ready, planning to shoot he Carlist Aniano Jimenez Santos. In the photo are visible his cousin Sixto de Borbón and Hermenegildo García Llorente. The man with a walking stick in the right hand is the "ultra" Augusto Cauchi, follower of Stefano de Chiae, leader of the Italian fascist group "Ordine Nuovo" (New Order).

Supporters of the Carlist pretender, Carlos Hugo, complaining after the massacre took place. Estella, May 9, 1976.

Día de los Muertos and other Skulls and Bones

I have always been fascinated by the 'Day of the Dead' and, though this Mexican festival is in some ways related to Spain, it's got little to do with boinas, unfortunately.

More than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death. It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate. These days the ritual is known as Día de los Muertos.

I was delighted to find a nice link between Día de los Muertos and berets, thanks to this school-web site.

Researching further, there are a few more skeletons and skulls to be found with a beret, but the field is dominated by pretty awful Green Beret-themed badges and slogans

(it would be nice to have a search engine that filtered out all Green berets!).

China Bank Guizhou Branch's Beret

This ad is from the "China Bank Guizhou Branch", saying that "any high interest rates savings account" (the yellow characters top left) "aren't guaranteed/protected by any laws or regulations" (top left big red characters).
Scary thought but at least prospective customers are warned about risks when depositing funds (many thanks to you, Terence, for your assistance!).

I do wonder what the symbolism of the beret is here...

Macedonian Berets in Iran

Every now and than, when searching for interesting things on berets, I stumble upon a real gem, like this picture here:

Unfortunately, the accompanying text is in Persian (and I am not a master in that language; when travelling through Iran, shortly after the Islamic Revolution, the only textbook I could find was one published by BP for their oil expatriates, translating orders and complaints to and about servants...). From the instant Google translation, I understand these statues to be of Macedonian origin, left behind in Persia after Alexander the Great went through.
On a site about Macedonian civilization, I found this comment: I can't understand what they are but it says they are certainly Macedonians [not Greeks] because they have worn hats which are similar to French berets! Archaeologist have found several of them in the temples of Athen Hipia. 
Interesting comment, but questionable as there is little evidence of berets in France around that time (the anti-Greek feeling may have more to do with the author bing Macedonian, I guess...).


This is the original text in Farsi: 

توضيح مربوط به عكس1: مسجدسليمان ـ پرسشگاه بزرگ ـ اسواران مقدوني و سواركاران مقدوني كه الهه‌اي با خود دارند.

if anyone has a better translation - please let me know!

Dreadlocks, Rastafarians and the Beret

The wearing of dreadlocks is very closely associated with the Rastafarian movement, though not universal among, or exclusive to, its adherents. Rastas maintain that locks are supported by Leviticus 21:5 ("They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in the flesh.") and the Nazirite vow in Numbers 6:5 ("All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.").

It has often been suggested (e.g., Campbell 1985) that the first Rasta locks were copied from Kenya in 1953, when images of the independence struggle of the feared mau mau insurgents, who grew their "dreaded locks" while hiding in the mountains, appeared in newsreels and other publications that reached Jamaica. However, a more recent study by Barry Chevannes has traced the first Hairlocked Rastas to a subgroup first appearing in 1949, known as Youth Black Faith.

Rastafari associate dreadlocks with a spiritual journey that one takes in the process of locking their hair (growing hairlocks). It is taught that patience is the key to growing locks, a journey of the mind, soul and spirituality. Its spiritual pattern is aligned with the Rastafari movement. The way to form natural dreadlocks is to allow hair to grow in its natural pattern, without cutting, combing or brushing, but simply to wash it with pure water.

For the Rastas the razor, the scissors and the comb are the three Babylonian or Roman inventions. So close is the association between dreadlocks and Rastafari, that the two are sometimes used synonymously. In reggae music, a follower of Rastafari may be referred to simply as a "hairlocks", "dreadlocks" or "natty (natural) dread", whilst those non-believers who cut their hair are referred to as baldheads.

And, of course, what better headgear to cover and protect your dreadlocks than a beret? Not so much the traditional Beret Basque (although a good sized txapela would do it), but more the large knitted variety in red, yellow, green and black. 

Another Japanese Cartoonist: Ryuichi Yokoyama

Ryuichi Yokoyama is best known as a cartoonist, but he has worked in a wide variety of media all his life. 

In addition to all the cartoons he created, he's an accomplished painter, essayist and sculptor. Ryuichi Yokoyama's most famous strip, 'Fuku Chan', was hugely popular and ran from 1938 to 1971, for a record-setting 5,534 editions. Other Yokoyama creations of note are 'The Beggar King', 'Peko-chan' and 'Densuke' in the 1940s, and 'Yuki' and 'Hyaku Baka'in the 1960s. Ryuichi Yokoyama is beloved and celebrated all over Japan, but probably nowhere more than in his hometown, Kochi City.

Japanese cartoonist Ryuichi Yokoyama and a group of top cartoonists from Japan arrive at the Los Angeles International Airport, May 11, 1967. Yokoyama wears a suit with boutonierre, beret and tinted eyeglasses.