Guy Peellaert is an unusual inventor of images, a creator of revolutionary and transgressive visual stories, ambiguously positioned somewhere between credibility and absurdity.
He studied art in Brussels and worked as a set designer in the theatre, and in 1966 he published his first story in comics, ‘Les adventures de Jodelle’.
The following year he created the character ‘Pravda la Survireuse’ (Pravda the Misfit), one of the first French comics to combine eroticism with pop culture in a pyrotechnic sequence of situations. Peellaert draws inspiration from Françoise Hardy for his heroine: a modern amazon dressed in leather and riding a powerful motorbike. Pravda’s adventures take place in a city of the future populated by a degenerate version of humanity.
Guy Peellaert’s career took a new turn when he met Nick Cohn, an expert on rock music and author of the short story which provided the story for the cult classic ‘Saturday night fever’. Peellaert ‘stole’ photographs to illustrate Cohn’s fantastic reconstruction of the legends of rock.
All the stars of pop and rock (Elvis, Ray Charles, Sinatra, Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder and many more) are portrayed in a way consistent with the imaginations of adolescent fanatics.
The book ‘Rock Dreams’ was an instant hit and has become a timeless legend in the world of comic books.
For years Peellaert abandoned illustration to paint and work on other projects. Then he suddenly reappeared on the world scene with something no-one had dared to do before.
‘Rêves du 20ème siècle’ (Twentieth Century Dreams), again produced in partnership with Cohn, who provided the text, is a bold expression of the imagination featuring unlikely and entirely impossible encounters between politicians and men from the world of finance with actresses, singers and jetsetters who have certainly never met them in real life.
Beyond the fun and the attraction of his artistic creation, Peellaert ‘writes’ another parallel history of the century that has just ended clearly revealing his awareness of social reality. And, who knows, if these encounters had really taken place, the history of the century might have been different – and a lot more fun!
He is a photograph ‘thief’ because his highly elaborate drawings featuring surrealistic representation and skilful use of colour are produced using famous photographs published in news magazines.
Peellaert patiently seeks out the photographs he uses, revealing his hunger for culture and his deep interest in the world of the mass media that shape our lives today.
Guy Peellaert is an unusual inventor of images, a creator of revolutionary and transgressive visual stories, ambiguously positioned somewhere between credibility and absurdity.
He studied art in Brussels and worked as a set designer in the theatre, and in 1966 he published his first story in comics, ‘Les adventures de Jodelle’.
The following year he created the character ‘Pravda la Survireuse’ (Pravda the Misfit), one of the first French comics to combine eroticism with pop culture in a pyrotechnic sequence of situations. Peellaert draws inspiration from Françoise Hardy for his heroine: a modern amazon dressed in leather and riding a powerful motorbike. Pravda’s adventures take place in a city of the future populated by a degenerate version of humanity.
Guy Peellaert’s career took a new turn when he met Nick Cohn, an expert on rock music and author of the short story which provided the story for the cult classic ‘Saturday night fever’. Peellaert ‘stole’ photographs to illustrate Cohn’s fantastic reconstruction of the legends of rock.
All the stars of pop and rock (Elvis, Ray Charles, Sinatra, Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder and many more) are portrayed in a way consistent with the imaginations of adolescent fanatics.
The book ‘Rock Dreams’ was an instant hit and has become a timeless legend in the world of comic books.
For years Peellaert abandoned illustration to paint and work on other projects. Then he suddenly reappeared on the world scene with something no-one had dared to do before.
‘Rêves du 20ème siècle’ (Twentieth Century Dreams), again produced in partnership with Cohn, who provided the text, is a bold expression of the imagination featuring unlikely and entirely impossible encounters between politicians and men from the world of finance with actresses, singers and jetsetters who have certainly never met them in real life.
Beyond the fun and the attraction of his artistic creation, Peellaert ‘writes’ another parallel history of the century that has just ended clearly revealing his awareness of social reality. And, who knows, if these encounters had really taken place, the history of the century might have been different – and a lot more fun!
He is a photograph ‘thief’ because his highly elaborate drawings featuring surrealistic representation and skilful use of colour are produced using famous photographs published in news magazines.
Peellaert patiently seeks out the photographs he uses, revealing his hunger for culture and his deep interest in the world of the mass media that shape our lives today.