Smoking Guns - Illustrating the sixties

Signed Limited Edition Prints

Professional high-resolution scan, colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée print on 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks. 

Edition of 50 + 5 artist's proofs, each signed by the artist

Paper size 59.5 cm X 42 cm  

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

Original painting, acrylic on board, c.1966,  

Whilst working for American magazines, Johnson created this to pitch to potential clients in New York.  In order to demonstrate his artistry and range, he has repeated male and female figures.  What began as something functional became part of Johnson’s developing style; in particular, his use of collage.

Lever Gallery Print

Professionally high-resolution scanned, individually colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée printed onto 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Paper size: 42 cm X 29.7 cm 

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

Original artwork; mixed media, 1966

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

Coppola packed contrasting artwork and photography tight for the cover illustration of C.P. Snow’s debut novel, first published in 1932. In this way, he reflected the claustrophobia and paranoia of the narrative; characters trapped in an isolated cottage with a potential killer. The original painting art board is approximately 26 cm wide x 35 cm tall. 

Lever Gallery Limited Edition Prints

Professional high-resolution scan, colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée print on 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Edition of 50 + 5 artist's proofs

Paper size 42 cm X 29.7 cm  

 If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

Original work; mixed media, 1966

Coppola 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 original painting art board is approximately 22 cm wide x 27 cm tall. 

Limited Edition Prints

Professional high-resolution scan, colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée print on 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Edition of 50 + 5 artist's proofs

Paper size 42 cm X 29.7 cm  

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

Original work, mixed media, 1966

Coppola 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 original painting art board is approximately 27 cm wide x 40 cm tall. 

Lever Gallery Limited Edition Print

Professionally high-resolution scanned, individually colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée printed onto 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Paper size: 42 cm X 29.7 cm  Approx. 

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com 

Original work; mixed media, 1966 

Copolla was commissioned by legendary Penguin art director Germano Facetti and under his guidance was inspired to create a series of ground breaking covers. This was Penguin’s 1966 reprint of C.P. Snow’s 1956 book and is a perfect example of Coppola’s use of montage, creating crisp graphic lines out of textured art work and high contrast black and white photography set on arresting primary colours. 

The original painting art board is approximately 26 cm wide x 35 cm tall. 

Limited Edition Prints

Professional high-resolution scan, colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée print on 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Edition of 50 + 5 artist's proofs

Paper size 42 cm X 29.7 cm  

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

Original work; mixed media, 1966

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 cold war thriller written in 1952 by Paul Gallico is modernised by Penguin in 1966. Jarring colour, broken perspective and clustered layers of precise draughtsmanship highlight the story of a mistaken spy broken by brainwashing and interrogation. The original painting art board is approximately 25 cm wide x 39 cm tall. 

Lever Gallery Limited Edition Prints

Professional high-resolution scan, colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée print on 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Edition of 50 + 5 artist's proofs

Paper size 42 cm X 29.7 cm  

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

Original work; mixed media, 1966

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

The novel, written by Simone De Beauvoir in 1945, chronicles the lives of several Parisians in the lead up to the Second World War. Coppola’s 1966 cover for Penguin captures the book’s existential themes with precise, black line work on stark, primary colour.

Limited Edition Prints

Professional high-resolution scan, colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée print on 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Edition of 50 + 5 artist's proofs

Paper size 42 cm X 29.7 cm  

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

Original work; mixed media, 1966

A Perry Mason novel written by Erle Stanley Gardner in 1943 and made into a film in 1935. Coppola applies his modernist approach to the pulp novel and, inspired by legendary art director Germano Facetti, elevates it to sit easily alongside Penguin’s classic literary fiction. The montage of jarring, mismatched imagery, creates an uneasy composition which has much in common with fine-art abstraction.

Lever Gallery Print

Professional high-resolution scan, colour adjusted to closely represent original artwork. Giclée print on 100% Cotton Rag ‘Hahnemühle’ 308gsm Fine Art Paper, using archival pigmented inks.

Paper size 42cm X 29.7cm  

If you have any questions regarding this edition please email info@levergallery.com

1966, original artwork

Fratini's cover for Mickey Spillane's 'The Flier' published by Corgi Books in 1967 was later used for the cover of 'The Sour Lemon Score'.

Donald E. Westlake wrote 'The Sour Lemon Score', one of his ‘Parker’ series under the pseudonym of Richard Stark in 1969. Fratini's illustration was used on a Danish publication of the story in a raunchier style than those produced for English versions.

The painting is classic Fratini, provocative poses in a setting reduced to stylistic bare-bones.

The original painting art board is approximately 30 cm wide x 38 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.