Science Fiction movies and the 1960’s. Shorter distances between the science and the fiction. Bigger budgets and better scripts. New actors who have not spent their entire careers fighting giant, mutant bugs. Special effects that are almost believable. After MGM’s breakthrough experiment of ‘Forbidden Planet‘ in 1956 and mainstream Disney’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea‘ of 1954. Hollywood begins to sense that Sci-Fi can be...
Our journey through space travel science fiction has our coordinates locked onto the 1950’s The most Ultra of the Ultra-Swank decades. Receding in our aft view screen is the pulp pre-war period of the 1930’s and 1940’s – the times of cowboys in space. They rode rockets instead of horses and blasted bad guys with ray guns instead of six-shooters. Our mid-century destination is where...
As the technological miracles of the 20th Century exploded- so did our imaginations. Where would all this science take us? Up, out and beyond our normal mundane lives to New Worlds where anything was possible! The vast and limitless horizon of outer space! In a time before television and jet airplanes the technical label of astronaut had not been invented. The men and women that...
Fellow fans of Ultra Swank are well aware that we are revelers in a cultural period of technology supreme. Be it Hi-Fi or Hydrogen Bomb if it had push buttons and chrome it was an object of desire! Few artists captured this ‘age of the machine’ better than Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965). Immigrating from Russia to New York City in 1919, Artzybasheff’s career included over 200...
Retro futuristic concept drawings for branded stores, circa 1955-1965. I really dig the look and the color schemes. Unknown artist, but resembles the work of Charles Schridde....
Found a whole bunch of really nice vintage American car advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s in the Ultra Swank Flickr Group. Wish Detroit still would do classic hand drawn illustrations like this today for their cars. Which is your favorite American mid century car and why?...
The weekend is around the corner and to inspire you here is artist Robert McCall’s vision of man exploring Mars, scanned from the October 1964 issue of Life Magazine. McCall did many illustrations for NASA in the 1960s as well the movie 2001 by Stanley Kubrick. Have a great weekend!...