Allover Patterns for Designers and Craftsmen by Clarence P. Hornung (review)

256 Books 25-X should be 35-8: p. X3. where I J T should be I / 2 f l p . 89. where dodecagon should be decagon and pp. 122and 123,where hexagon should be octagon. Art Deco Designs in Color. Charles Rahn Fry. ed. Dover. New York, 1975. 46 pp.. illus. Paper. $5.00. Reviewed by Arthur L. Loeb* This book consists of ;Lselection of plates from portfolios mostly in the collection of Charles Rahn Fry. These portfolios were originally produced between 1925 and 1931 by the pochoir stencil technique. This technique, now largely superseded by silk screening. aimed to produce several hundred or even a thousand copieh but depended ultimately on the application of paint or ink by hand Unlike silk screening. it ib not a printing pi-oceas: individual variations among copies in gradations. hues or even colors arc possible. Each print might require as many as 80 different stencils. The product of this method is a too expensive limited-edition format. Because the pochoir medium was designed for a multiple-copy product. it is very suitable for reproduction. The present book differs from William Rowe's Originul .4rt Dcco Dc~igns[cf. L~wicrrclo9, 256 ( I976)]. also published by Dover. in several respects. The Rowe book is not a reprint. but an original work. designed in the 1970's. Paradoxically, the latter is more evocative of the Art Deco period than is Fry's book. probably because Rowe intended. from the vantage point of40 years later. to recreate consciously the essence of a by-gone age.The works under review here are much lessself-consciouslystyle-oriented.In point of fact, the label 'Art Deco' is not very apt hrre: pochoir is the uniI) ing theme. That thih medium lends itself to a variety of styles is evident froin these samples of the Fry collection. Edouard Benedictus's panrl\ arc dcliherately Hat. nonfigurative. On the other hand. E. A. Scguy'\ dcsigns suggest 3-dimensional crystalline growth p;ttterns. v,hile Jacques Camus suggests Mediterranean ports of c:iIl S r y c Gl;idkv's colors are both exuberant ;ind subtle. f;rr removed I'roin the deliberately crass Art Deco Style. Some examples by Sonia Delauney, Georges Valmier, A. Garcelon and single examples by V. Boberman and Yvonne Bouchaud complete this beautiful collection. The quality ofcolor and paper are so excellent that one would wish for a hard cover to protect what is. after all. a fairly capcnsive edition ($5.00 for 46 pages). Allover Patterns for Designers and Craftsmen. Clarence P. Hornung. Dover. New York. 1975. 114 pp.. illus. Paper. $4.50. Reviewed by John Scott Willson** During the last few years symmetrical patterns and other forms nf geometrical art have become increasingly popular as designs for book covcrs. advertisements. fabrics and packaging. In this publication Hornung presents numerous examples of repeating patterns that could be used in these areas ofcommercial art. The I14 plntes. of which 24 are in colour, reflect a great variety of influencesranging from Op artists. such as Vasarely and Riley, to the classical styles of Ancient Greece, Arabia and the Orient. 4hoiit half of the patterns are built around simple geometrical units such as circles. polygons. whorls and woven lattices. A few o f these drawings are extremely simple. for example regular tessellations of black and white triangles, but others involve interesting relationships between complex shapes. Many of the patterns are not completely original and six are direct reproductions of drawings by Horemis. which I reviewed in Lconurtb 7, X2 (1974).The designs based upon natural themes. such as grasses, flowers, birds and fish, show more originality. Many of them have been inspired by motifs used in Japanese art. but. in spite of this. they are not markedly different from some popular British wallpaper patterns. *Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. Harvard University. Cambridge. MA 0213% U.S.A. **The Manchester Grammer School, Old Hall Lane. Manchester M I3 OXT. England. In the brief introduction Hornung suggests that his book may stimulate the imagination of other designers. I feel that most artists will already be familiar with some of the unoriginal designs and will find little inspiration in Hornung's...