The Chelsea Girls.
ALDRIDGE, (Alan).
Original film poster, a reprint issued two years after the first issue. 50.5 x 76cm., photomontage design, on thin paper stock. Harlow, Motif, Shenval Press, 1970
Signed and dated: "October 1971 Alan Aldridge" on the lower right corner.
Some restoration work on a few closed tears and creases. A very good or better copy. A desirable Warholian ephemeron. An unsigned copy in the Nourmand collection.
Styled as an 'anti-Advent' calendar, the poster depicts the very beautiful sixteen year old actress, model and artist Claire Shenstone's body inset with nine windows of the Chelsea Hotel with dolls peeking out of them.
Aldridge created this poster for a film premiere in October nineteen sixty-eight at Drury Lane's Arts Lab, a pioneering avant garde institution of sixties' London. Warhol and Morrisey's nineteen sixty-six film used split screen, out of focus, improvisation and a cast of wild and speeding characters who hung out at Andy's Factory. These included Gerard Malanga, Marie Menken, International Velvet, Ondine, Brigid Berlin and of course the very beautiful Nico, who appears in the film cutting her beautiful peroxide hair.
Aldridge, lived and worked in the heart of 'Swinging London' which made his vision of the film very different to Warhol's original intentions. His creative sources were also very different and included Magritte, Escher and Dali. The design was well received by Warhol (who is said to have rung Aldridge and commented on how it was better than the film) and the Design and Art Directors Club who bestowed a Silver Award on him. It wasn't appreciated very much by the legal establishment, who issued a warrant for his arrest under the pornography laws.
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