Valentin Vega #2

More of the work of Valentin Vega (see yesterday's post):

 
 

Valentin Vega #1

Valentín Vega Fernández (1912 - 1997) was a renowned photographer from Asturias.

He grew up and trained in Gijón. His parents were very interested in photography and his brothers ended up also dedicating themselves to photography by setting up their own studios. During the Civil War he was secretary of the UGT in Gijón. He was imprisoned for three years because of his political affiliation.

By 1941 he began visiting the Asturian mining basins, especially the Nalón, as a traveling photographer or "street photographer". In 1951 he moved to El Entregowith, where he opened a photo studio. Here he also worked as a teacher of physical education and athletics since the 60s.

Valentín Vega is especially known for his portraits of the daily life of the mining towns of Asturias in the 40s and 50s: shops, miners, charcoal women, fairs, parks, etc.

Despite his prolific work, only part of his work was saved from the 1941-1951 period (more than 70,000 negatives) by the Asturian People's Museum of Gijón, where it is preserved. Between January and March 2017, the National Museum of Anthropology (Spain) has dedicated an exhibition to him: "Valentín Vega: La Vida por delante".

Georg Baselitz’s Heroes

They are monumental paintings, aggressive and defiant in their execution. At the same time, they possess a quality of ambivalence, fatefulness and vulnerability to this day – Georg Baselitz’s dramatic and contradictory “Heroes”. 

Georg Baselitz - Ein Roter

Georg Baselitz (1938) is one of the most influential painters and sculptors of our time. In 1965/66, in a virtually explosive spurt of productivity, he developed his dramatic and paradoxical Hero paintings. 

The forceful workgroup of the Heroes and New Types is today regarded worldwide as a key example of the German art of the 1960s. 

Georg Baselitz - Bonjour Monsieur Courbet

His monumental “Heroes” in their tattered battle dress, figures marked as much by failure as they are by resignation, possess an accordingly contradictory character.

On SPECIAL this week, the Hispano Basque berets in Bleu de France.

On SPECIAL this week, the Hispano Basque berets in Bleu de France.

Three varieties: Basque berets with and without headband and berets in the military style.

Bleu de France (Blue of France) is a colour traditionally used to represent France. Blue has been used in the heraldry of the French monarchy since at least the 12th century, with the golden fleurs-de-lis of the kings always set on a blue (heraldic "azure") background.

A brighter version, based on the blue of the French Tricolour, is used in modern times, particularly in a sporting context. French national teams in all sports will normally use blue as their main colour. Blue is France's national racing colour and several French motorsport teams have used it, including Alpine, Bugatti, Peugeot and Voisin.

Former French car manufacturer Saviem only used this colour for their vans and trucks; hence the colour is often named "Saviem-Blue". 

On Special for for as long as stock lasts, but be quick - some models will sell out fast at prices between $25.00 and $32.50! 

Airport Session

Schoolgirl (in uniform, with beret) joins in with airline pilots grounded by Storm Emma on the airport piano for an incredible rock and roll jam session.

Wings

Wings is a 1927 American silent war film set during the First World War produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman and released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and Richard Arlen. Gary Cooper appears in a small role which helped launch his career in Hollywood.

Wellman was hired as he was the only director in Hollywood at the time who had World War I combat pilot experience, although Richard Arlen and John Monk Saunders had also served in the war as military aviators. The film was shot on location on a budget of $2 million at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas between September 7, 1926 and April 7, 1927. 

Hundreds of extras and some 300 pilots were involved in the filming, including pilots and planes of the United States Army Air Corps which were brought in for the filming and to provide assistance and supervision. Wellman extensively rehearsed the scenes for the Battle of Saint-Mihiel over ten days with some 3500 infantrymen on a battlefield made for the production on location.

Wings was one of the first to show two men kissing, and also one of the first widely released films to show nudity - 1927 America seemed more open and progressive than 2018.

 The film was re-released again for its 90th anniversary in 2017 and shows some nice shots of early Chasseurs Alpins berets.

You And Me On A Sunny Day

Rocky McCorkle is a large format photographer who wants to bring the movie experience to the museum.

McCorkle’s series of 135 large-scale photographs titled You and Me on a Sunny Day is conceived as a silent film in the form of a sequence of stills. The works, seen in order, tell the story of an elderly woman recollecting, and at times dreaming about, her deceased husband and his youth as a champion long-distance runner. 

All of the interior shots were made in the artist’s own San Francisco apartment, which he transformed into a complex mise-en-scène for the unfolding narrative. 

To complete his monumental project, McCorkle spent every Sunday for five years photographing his downstairs neighbor, Gilda Todar, in the lead role.

The astonishing clarity and richness of detail in the prints is the result of a painstaking process of shooting up to twenty-two individual high-resolution photographs for each final image, using digital technology to create a fantastically seamless montage.

Every Sunday evening for five years, McCorkle brought Todar (1927—2017) up for a photo shoot on a set that he had spent all week decorating as if it were the 1950s. It took half an hour to make one image, and the next week they did it all over again — a process slower than clay animation.

Gilda and Rocky

Sgt. John Fanning

Sgt. John Fanning was home on leave in the 1950s from the 13th Ranger Company.

He spent 17 years in the Army, much of it during four tours in Vietnam with Special Forces. 
From War Tales.

Dior Berets by Stephen Jones

Inspired by Niki de Saint Phalle’s assertive personality, the British milliner Stephen Jones created a denim beret clouded in net, a “J’adior” visor as a hybrid accessory somewhere between a baseball cap and sunglasses, and a simply-worn and perfectly simple black felt hat.

"The beret is the t-shirt of hats," says Stephen Jones regarding this particularly versatile headwear, worn by all the models who walked in the Dior ready-to-wear autumn-winter 2017-2018 show from Maria Grazia Chiuri. 

For the occasion, the British milliner, who's celebrating twenty years of collaboration with the House, revisited this timeless accessory in ultra-soft black lambskin.

Camargue

The Camargue is a natural region located south of Arles, France, between the Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Rhône delta. The eastern arm is called the Grand Rhône; the western one is the Petit Rhône.

With an area of over 930 km2 (360 sq mi), the Camargue is western Europe's largest river delta. It is a vast plain comprising large brine lagoons or étangs, cut off from the sea by sandbars and encircled by reed-covered marshes. These are in turn surrounded by a large cultivated area.

Black beret with the Cross of Camargue

Approximately a third of the Camargue is either lakes or marshland. The central area around the shoreline of the Étang de Vaccarès has been protected as a regional park since 1927.

Its brine ponds provide one of the few European habitats for the greater flamingo. The marshes are also a prime habitat for many species of insects, notably (and notoriously) some of the most ferocious mosquitos to be found anywhere in France. Camargue horses (Camarguais) roam the extensive marshlands, along with Camargue cattle.

The native flora of the Camargue have adapted to the saline conditions. Sea lavender and glasswort flourish, along with tamarisks and reeds.

Humans have lived in the Camargue for millennia, greatly affecting it with drainage schemes, dykes, rice paddies and salt pans. Much of the outer Camargue has been drained for agricultural purposes.

The Camargue has an eponymous horse breed, the famous white Camarguais. Camargue horses are ridden by the gardians (cowboys), who rear the region's cattle for fighting bulls for export to Spain, as well as sheep. Many of these animals are raised in semi-feral conditions, allowed to roam through the Camargue within a manade, or free-running herd.

John Mulgan

John Alan Edward Mulgan (1911–1945) was a New Zealand writer, journalist and editor, and the elder son of journalist and writer Alan Mulgan. His influence on New Zealand literature and identity grew in the years after his death. He is best known for his novel Man Alone (1939).

Mulgan held leftish political views and was alarmed by the rise of fascism in Europe and the response of the British government to it. In 1936, he was an observer for the New Zealand government at the League of Nations in Geneva. During this time, he wrote a series of articles on foreign affairs, titled "Behind the Cables", for the Auckland Star newspaper.

His view that war in Europe was inevitable led Mulgan to join the army in 1938, and he was made second lieutenant in an infantry regiment. Posted to the Middle East in 1942, Mulgan was promoted to major and made second-in-command of his regiment. He saw action at El Alamein and fought alongside the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He was impressed by the calibre of his compatriots and found meeting New Zealanders after being in England for so long to be a kind of "homecoming". He left the Royal West Kents Regiment after reporting his last Colonel as quite incompetent.

In 1943, Mulgan joined the Special Operations Executive and was sent to Greece to coordinate guerilla action against the German forces. He was awarded the Military Cross for his actions. After the German withdrawal in 1944, Mulgan oversaw British compensation to Greek families who had helped the Allied forces.

In the evening of Anzac Day 1945, Mulgan intentionally took an overdose of morphine. Speculation continues as to why he committed suicide. He is buried at Heliopolis military cemetery in Cairo. Mulgan was survived by his wife Gabrielle (married 1937) and son Richard (born 1940).

SPB's Biggest SPECIAL Ever!

On SPECIAL this week, boinas from the Fábrica Nacional de Sombreros in Uruguay!

This week a massive Special; in price reduction, size and variety. With many new berets in the pipeline for later this year, room needs to be created and with a large stock of berets, or boinas, from Uruguay, what better way then to slash prices on these berets for a little while.

All models are presently (much) reduced in price, from the basic Nutria (now @ $25.00) to the massive 35cm Cataluña @ ($44.50). In between, many standard Cataluña's and Castlla's in merino and cotton (@ $37.50).

On Special for for as long as stock lasts, but be quick - some models will sell out fast!

Pamela Anderson made a surprise visit to a refugee camp in France

Pamela Anderson made a surprise visit to a refugee camp in France, and was left “speechless.”

“I’m so angry,” wrote the star. “The children are so lovely and polite. I gave out blankets, hats, gloves, fruit, coloring books and crayons. Some were so fearful they wouldn’t get a blanket or crayons or an apple . . . It was chaos. I’ll never forget today.”

Anderson wrote on her blog, “They have been there for months, years . . . The politics are incomprehensibly devastating. People must see what is happening. Beautiful and innocent people are shown such little respect.”

She added, “I encourage more people to come visit and volunteer.”