Royal Decree of Chasbo

His Majesty Charles White III will be signing copies of the fabulous Overspray Thursday June 18th 7.30 at Village Books 1049 Swarthmore Avenue, Pacific Palisades, California. Bliss!

Go See CWIII

Charlie White is having a one-day art sale at his studio in Venice Beach California. 9 Wavecrest Avenue, on June 7th from 3 til 6. Here's a sample of some of the original art that will be for sale.

Overspray Original Art Sale at PictureBox Gallery

Overspray's publisher PictureBox has just launched PictureBox Gallery in order to sell selected original art by a small stable of their artists, including soul brothers Peter Lloyd and Charles E White III. Get over there and scope it out!

Charlie White's 177 Feet II

Charles E. White III: Very Good Hair in a Century of Good Hair.

Herewith a couple of snaps supplied to us by Charlie White. The bottom image depicts Charlie, his wife Linda and their two kids as the ultimate hipster family. Charlie would like it known that "and we weren't hippies man, we were artists!!!" It was taken in New Jersey in 1967. On top is an awe-inspiring photo by the infamous Jean-Paul Goude. It was used as an advertisement for Wrangler Jeans in Sweden in 1975. This is the only evidence of Charlie's all-too-brief modeling career in the 1970s. I think the main thing to note from all these CWIII posts is this: Did any illustrator have more fun in the 1960s and 70s? I think not! Charlie did something with his persona and his work that was perhaps only possible for a West Coast boy to do: lighten up, go Hollywood, and not worry. It's not a NYC-centric attitude (which focused much more on notions of conceptual rigor, seriousness, and societies), and as we view all this history, it makes more and more sense why the Overspray Kings have been so meticulously excised from the NYC-controlled illustration history books: they were too fun, too image oriented. Too LA But we should embrace it! Embrace the LA It is still the future there. It always will be.

Paint Making

Here's a slide show from recently unearthed contact sheets of behind-the-scenes shots taken during Charlie's incredible film Paint. Chas-bone doesn't remember who the other peeps are swirling around in the background (it was, after all, 1968!) but dig the groovy production.

Demure? Moi?

One day in 1967 Charlie White III and Dave Willardson were out for a drive and saw a billboard. Dave mentioned that it would be cool to advertise Charlie's studio with such a large scale format. So they went back to "The White House" and called the billboard company. Turned out they couldn't just rent one -- they had to rent five! Black and white was cheapest, so Charlie dug up a b&w promo photo he had from a photo booth, Dave set the type and before they knew it, they had five billboards up around L.A. advertising the man himself. This was very much in the tongue-in-cheek, pop style of the day. Advertise the man/brand ahead of the art! At the time Charlie was going full guns as the premiere West Coast pop-style illustrator. Charlie has since mentioned that it was taken the wrong way by some, who thought it was, um, a tad immodest. But nevertheless these billboards are still remembered by L.A. oldsters as an iconic image around the city. But the idea nicely foreshadow today's strategies (think Shephard Fairey) in its simplicity and persona-driven directness. The billboards begat a whole campaign, including the decal seen at right and the booklet below.

Charles E. White III Rules The World

The clinically shy Charlie White produced this humble self promotion piece in 1967 featuring spectacular photographs by David Willardson. The layout, right down to the typography, was influenced by their L.A. contemporary Ed Ruscha's books from that period. Of course this booklet dovetailed nicely with the Charlie White III billboards that went up around L.A. at the time. More on that later.

Paint

This film of Charlie White was made in 1968 by the Haboush Company. Victor Haboush, whose career has spanned 1950s Disney films to the more recent Iron Giant, produced the film via his own company. From a studio in Santa Monica Haboush produced well over 1000 commercials. Victor remembers Paint as a novelty project, shot just for fun, and Charlie as "an exciting guy and an adventurer in the business." Charlie himself notes that Norman Gollin, who directed the film, was a major West Coast presence as an art director, and that he shot it all in one take. No paint-overs, and no practice. It was pure psychedelic improvisation.

The Original Ruler

This week I'll be uploading a rash of crap recently unearthed at Charles White III's studio in Venice California. Charlie had a colorful career way before he turned into the compressed air king covered in Overspray. This is a photo of Charlie back in the day, sitting under a bedspread (yes, really!) created by his disgustingly talented wife Linda, who's a noted interior designer. So come back soon, there's some good stuff on it's way...

Update:
Due to the amount of interest in the wall hanging I phoned Linda White to ask about the TV Dinner, She said it was created for a Bloomingdales Model Room in the 70s for interior designer Robert K Lewis. Bloomingdales was pretty hip at the time and featured contemporary interior designers work within the store. Linda said this room was all done in Brown and white with the TV Dinner bedspread providing the only color. Linda went on from creating textile art and tapestries to designing complete interiors. She heads her own company White Design based in Venice Beach in Los Angeles. She said she still has the bedspread and can see it poking out from her loft storage space from where she sits.

70s Shirtage

While trawling through the archives for the upcoming Overspray gallery show, Dan uncovered this treasure designed by Charles White III back in the 70s.

New Year

Ran into this Charles White III cover for New York Magazine yesterday. From 1974.

Overspray Soundtracks II

Slip on your cranberry suede fringed boots and have a listen to Gentle Giant's The Advent of Panurge from their 1972 album Octopus. This epic die-cut cover was painted by Charles White III with lettering by Michael Doret.

Film Title Art by Charles White III

Charles White's giant film title painting for the concert documentary Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones. Painted in two pieces, at over six feet wide, this is the first example of chrome painting that was wildly influential at the time, spawning truckloads of scary-assed heavy metal album covers in the years to come.

Rollerball

Charley White's Esquire illustration for The Roller Ball Murders. The article which was used for the basis of the uber 70s film. Lettering by Michael Doret, who provided lovely hand lettering for many of Charlie's early illustrations.

Cover 4: Charles White III

Illustration was originally used as a cover for Japanese hipster magazine Yasei Jidai, art directed by Eiko Ishioka.