Mod Art: Music and Graphics, Fashion and Art, Mod Design from the 1950s to 1990s

Fabulous book for pictures & write up. Highly recommend if this is your genre!

Great book on the phenomena "mod art" and anyone doubting it's a "mod heavy" book should be pleasantly surprised as it's not just a "pop art" loaded with targets and swinging 60's references but absolutely delves into the art of mod, via: media, mags, posters, gig flyers, clothing adds and seminal art by noted artists of the period.... absolutely recommended for any Mod. . A definite must have for mod collectors... 5*s.....

Another publication long in the pipeline. Certainly for me worth the wait. A pretty comprehensive guide to the visual or graphic aspect of matters relating to the world of Mod from the late '50s through to the present day. Beautifully presented in full colour on quality paper. The weighty tome includes everything from vintage artwork to more current exponents of work on canvas, record sleeves, magazine covers, vintage magazine articles and adverts. Never intended to be a definitive guide to what connoisseurs quite rightly would regard as 'Modern Art' but rather an over view of art, imagery and graphics relevant to the world inhabited by 'Mods' across the decades. For me a five star publication which opened my own, admittedly half-closed, eyes to the origins of much of the now iconic imagery the public looks upon as 'Mod'. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

This is an amazing book covering the 60s onwards with loads of pics of tickets, posters, magazines, leaflets, Ready Steady Go, fashions and many more. I wish the book had spent more effort on the 60s period (perhaps record covers could have been covered, more comics, interior art, shop products using 'mod' art style but it is still a worthwhile addition to my bookshelf. Can't wait for his next book.

As an original 60s "Mod",this book is our bible!! Brilliant illustrations of 60s ads for clothes,fanzines,posters for gigs etc, Beautifully put together to form an amazing book. If,like me,you were a Mod in 60s,you MUST own this book!! Along with Smiler Andersons other Mod masterpiece, "The New Religion",its a "must have" for us older Mods. (And new ones too). Just buy it,you wont be disappointed!!

A beautifully put together book featuring original art, record covers, posters, flyers, ads and much more relating to the Mod movement from the 1950's up to the present day.This book has surpassed my expectations even though the bar had been set pretty high by the authors previous works.With plenty of informative text to accompany the visuals it is a book that I will enjoy returning to again and again.

Fantastic well written book and the photos and images are excellent to.

This book will be enjoyed by many but its title is misleading. It should not be called Mod Art, it should be called something such as Visual Mod. I will be in a minority with the review but I have researched Mod Art extensively as a Modernist for forty years.The main section on art only covers Peter Blake with tiny mentions of Bridget Riley and Pauline Boty. Key figures such as Robyn Denny (his London mural is definitively Mod art and inspired so much more) and Gordon House (an actual Modernist who dressed in Ivy style) are not mentioned or covered at all. Robyn Denny's striped mod style art and murals by Eduardo Paolozzi are still seen on the London Underground and were obvious to include.There is nothing on Pop Art, Paul Rand graphics, Metzger influence on Pete Townshend is covered in a mention, nor are French cinema style, Bacon and Soho, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Calder, Mondrian, Isokon, Mod oriented pop artists such as Michael Cooper or Warren Chalk, not included . Early Modernist art in UK pre WWII is not mentioned at all, nor are many key exhibitions such as Situation. Tominsky and Robert Fraser galleries not covered either.Books such as Art in the Sixties or Burning A Box of Beautiful Things are much better on the subject. This has more coverage of 1970s-80s Mod Fanzines than the subject of the book (there is a new book about Fanzines that this overlaps without need).Other writing by the author on Mod is excellent, but it is quite obvious he does not know much about the modern art appreciated by Mods at the time. It's at the level of the recent Peter Blake documentary on Sky that was all about his album covers and barely touched on his art. Here there is nothing on the influence of style, film and art from France that was so pivotal to shaping Mod in 1960, or the Italian colour schemes and design of the 1950s. The springboard for second wave British Modernism that was the Festival of Britain isn't covered (it was an opportunity for young designers and musicians for the first time). I could go on, others will notice their particular interests in Mod related art and design missing such as Eames, Warhol (I used to wear the Monroe print as a Mod image on a t-shirt) or Roy Lichtenstein (whose pixelated Pop Art prints on T-shirts became a Mod style for a while in the 1980s). The omissions may also be to do with the cost of including copyrighted images but we don't know as they just aren't mentioned.By about half way through the book it is no longer about art at all it seems and covering Punk turning into Mod, revivial cover art though sadly not the Kent soul LP covers by Ian Clark (worthy of their own book). There are more fanzine covers from the Mod revival era than there is coverage of actual proper art with Mod relevance from the original era. These were fun to us at the time but never art.Town magazine is mentioned but the early modernist-surreal art work by Ian Dury when he was a graphic designer/artist whilst still a young clothes obsessed Mod about town (buying from Sam Arkus) prior to becoming a teacher and highly individual rock star, not here. That's a shame as it prefigured Monty Python. The pop art of bands like The Eyes & The Attack, or auto-destruction by The Move and THe NIce at their start isn't included either.There's so much that a bit more research and reading could of opened up in this book. A subject that is long overdue for such coverage, which just isn't in this book. There is no index or references mentioned. I have all the books this cribs from, read them and this is very shallow indeed. Most reviewers won't of read any of them so this will surperficially look great. That the book doesn't credit the work of others it reuses is not on, as almost all authors know.This book was delayed a number of times and to me it feels like the author gave up writing a book specifically on Mod Art and rewrote another generic book on Mod visuals. He's already fundamentally written most of this book and published it before.It looks nice, the page layouts are okay though lack much imagination compared to his own earlier book. Some of the pictures are good and useful, but there is very little actual Mod art imagery which is a shame.It is not a book on Mod Art, or art in even it's loosest sense., it's a book on visual aspects of Mod with a fairly wide and shallow net. Ironically it could then of covered films such as Small World of Sammy Lee, Blow Up, Smashing Time & Performance (it does Quadrophenia of course), 1950s French cinema, mid-century design, Jazz album cover art on Blue Note, art in John Simons and more but does not. It's an okay assortment without any narrative to join it together.I have been involved in Mod and modernism (style, art, design etc) for approaching forty years and read and explored widely beyond the core Mod lifestyle into wider aspects. This book will be for those who only care about the Who/Jam end of Mod. That's fine but not what this book is called or supposed to be about. It is not competent on its subject and it is incorrect to pretend it is about Mod/Pop art in anything other than a cursory way. It genuinely is disappointing to write this review but readers should be aware given the title.Some will love the book, it will sell well and I bought it too. It will get five star reviews but that will be by those who are just enamoured to get a nice book on Mod. And it is nice, but it's not about Mod art. The revival era imagery gets more coverage than the 50s-60s. Original Mods buying the book will often will be fairly cross I think and not recognise their scene from much of the book, those from later eras will enjoy it more. I gave it a quick read and filed it away then later resold it. Some will criticise or disagree with my reivew and that's fine, but please do go and check the artists I mention, I've been a Mod/modernist for forty years and explored its culture a lot - most of the relevant content that could of been included isn't here.Just type 'Robyn Denny London mural' into a search engine and you'll see what's missing. That mural was Austin Reed on Regent Street's response to threatening emergence of Carnaby Street a back street away. It was traditional menswear scared of Mod fashion, then incorporating it (and then opening Cue as Mod oriented menswear two years later). When the Beatles came to London for the first time in 1963 it was that mural they were photographed in front of, combining art, music and style all at once (ironically they were photographed in black and white). It was so Modern that the Beatles and that mural both represented the new together. That mural was the first instance of red, white and blue becoming the iconic Mod colours consciously after Peter Blake's Pop Art use in 1960. Can you believe that? Before the RAF roundel, this was it and it is not included., That moment is probably the very one when underground Mod ethos and the emerging sixties pop collided and London went overground. Ironically, this isn't in there but Austin Reed adopting Mod fashion by setting up Cue with Lloyd Johnson serving is (still around, still selling ace clothes). That it is not in this book is a huge omission. It was also when the torn up typography influenced Jamie Reid later on in Punk. How can it not be here? Especially when there is a linked section on Punk turning into Mod. I can only assume the author was completely unaware. But I wasn't there at the time either, I've just read around and explored the development of art, design and typography.It has to be said, there is far too much on the revival era and hardly anything at all on the early aspect of Mod. I do not understand the Mod inspired recent art, which is pretty basic. It starts to feel like filler. If we wanted a book on Ivy League clothes (which I do appreciate), Mod club posters, Fanzines or Jam album covers there are better (including ironically his own earlier book).So I looked forward to this with great interest, enjoyed other books by the author and know his commitment, but here the promise is not quite realised. Please do also read the author's reply below my review, which he took time to write and is appreciated. It adds context to the book and this review.

Fotos muy buenas

Beautiful vibrant book full of fantastic mod imagery. Well represented history of mod, including some new artists.

El libro llegó dentro del plazo marcado y en perfectas condiciones. Ahora a leerlo y disfrutarlo porque tiene una pinta excelente.