Original Artwork

1960s, Original artwork, acrylic on art board

Commissioned by Art Director Michael Rand, this series, Return of the Hardmen - 68 Masterstrokes, depicted the favoured shots of the world’s greatest tennis players. The cover that week featured Lou Hoad, other top-ranked players included in the issue were Cliff Drysdale and Andreas Gimeno.

The original painting art board is approximately 48cm wide x 68cm tall. The artwork is float mounted on to conservation grade mountboard and presented in a white wooden box frame glazed with anti-reflective glass.

1966, mixed media

Copolla was commissioned by legendary Penguin art director Germano Facetti and under his guidance was inspired to create a series of ground breaking covers. 

The translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s 1943 novel L’Invitee was published in the U.K. by Penguin in 1966.  Coppola’s vibrant use of collage juxtaposed with careful, detailed line work gives the book contemporary styling for a new audience.

The artwork is sold with an original She Came to Stay paperback that features the Coppola illustration.  

The original painting art board is approximately 22 cm wide x 27 cm tall. The artwork is float mounted on to conservation grade mountboard and presented in a white wooden box frame glazed with anti-reflective glass.

1966, mixed media

Copolla was commissioned by legendary Penguin art director Germano Facetti and under his guidance was inspired to create a series of ground breaking covers. 

A Perry Mason novel written by Erle Stanley Gardner in 1949, reprinted in 1966 by Penguin, gets the same modernist approach as Coppola’s covers for literary novels. The democratising effect of abstracting pulp imagery elevates a pulp-fiction novel, just as it makes the high-brow more accessible.

The artwork is sold with an original The Case Of The Half-Wakened Wife paperback that features the Coppola illustration.  

The original painting art board is approximately 27 cm wide x 40 cm tall. The artwork is float mounted on to conservation grade mountboard and presented in a white wooden box frame glazed with anti-reflective glass.

c. 1964-5, acrylic painting on canvas.

An early commission for short-lived London agency Dyad Marketing. Johnson interpreted the brief ‘Girl with a Gun’ using photographs in a sequence of poses arranged like a moving image. Influenced by American illustrators who were showing their work in art galleries, Johnson created this at a scale suitable for a gallery setting.

The original painting is approximately 100 cm tall X 200 cm wide. The artwork is on stretched canvas, framed in a white wooden box frame.

1960s, Original artwork, acrylic on art board

This painting was created as a short story illustration for the USA edition of Good Housekeeping Magazine in the mid 1960s. The original art board is approximately 70cm wide x 50cm tall. 

The artwork is float mounted on to conservation grade mountboard and presented in a white wooden box frame glazed with anti-reflective glass.