Steven Thomas (born Harry Steven Thomas, 30 October 1944) is an English designer and visual artist best known for his interiors and graphic design work for the Biba fashion brand.
42-893: Steve Thomas may refer to: Steve Thomas (artist) (born 1944), English designer and visual artist Steve Thomas (television) (born 1952), former host of This Old House on PBS, host of Renovation Nation on Planet Green Steve Thomas (Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm aviator) (born 1961), Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm aviator Steve Thomas (ice hockey) (born 1963), National Hockey League ice hockey player Steve Thomas (politician) (born 1967), Western Australian MLA Steve Thomas (footballer) (born 1979), Welsh footballer Steve Thomas (rugby) (born 1979), Welsh rugby league footballer Stevie Thomas [ edit ] Stevie Thomas (born 1967), Arena football player See also [ edit ] Steven Thomas (disambiguation) Stephen Thomas (disambiguation) [REDACTED] Topics referred to by
84-524: A "complete disorientation of the senses" (to paraphrase Arthur Rimbaud ). They knew that altered states of consciousness played a role in Eastern Mysticism. They were hip to psychedelics as psychiatric medicine. LSD was the perfect catalyst to electrify the eclectic mix of ideas assembled by the Beats into a cathartic, mass-distributed panacea for the soul of the succeeding generation. Leading proponents of
126-414: A group of 50 different artists to each do a painting from life of a subject of the artist's choosing. They were subsequently asked to do the same painting while under the influence of LSD. The two paintings were compared by Janiger and also the artist. The artists almost unanimously reported LSD to be an enhancement to their creativity. Ultimately it seems that psychedelics would be most warmly embraced by
168-530: A hilarious mirror up to the hippy lifestyle of the 1960s. Psychedelic art was also applied to the LSD itself. LSD began to be put on blotter paper in the early 1970s and this gave rise to blotter art , a specialized art form of decorating the blotter paper. Often the blotter paper was decorated with tiny insignia on each perforated square tab, but by the 1990s this had progressed to complete four color designs often involving an entire page of 900 or more tabs. Mark McCloud
210-412: A male model and waiter at restaurants on the adjacent King's Road. He also helped realise the psychedelic design by art collective Binder Edwards & Vaughn for the façade of Chelsea boutique Dandie Fashions . Among Thomas's art school teachers were the prominent British artists Patrick Caulfield , Allen Jones , and John Hoyland , from whom he developed a "love of Pop Art and my obsession with
252-501: A new genre of comic books: underground comix . "Zap Comix" was among the original underground comics, and featured the work of Robert Crumb , S. Clay Wilson , Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin , and Robert Williams among others. Underground Comix were ribald, intensely satirical, and seemed to pursue weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Gilbert Shelton created perhaps the most enduring of underground cartoon characters, "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers ", whose drugged out exploits held
294-421: A poster promotion that promised to "Turn your wall souper-delic!" The early years of the 1970s saw advertisers using psychedelic art to sell a limitless array of consumer goods. Hair products, cars, cigarettes, and even pantyhose became colorful acts of pseudo-rebellion. The Chelsea National Bank commissioned a psychedelic landscape by Peter Max, and neon green, pink, and blue monkeys inhabited advertisements for
336-408: A semantic shift, and soon came to mean "anything in youth culture which is colorful, or unusual, or fashionable." Puns using the concept of "tripping" abounded: as an advertisement for London Britches declared, their product was "great on trips!" By the mid-1970s, the psychedelic art movement had been largely co-opted by mainstream commercial forces, incorporated into the very system of capitalism that
378-447: A wistful portrait of the veiled actress Ingrid Boulting taken by Sarah Moon won a 1970 British Design Council award. Whitmore-Thomas restyled the children’s department within the Biba store and, with the launch of Biba Cosmetics, designed display units installed in concessions around the country. In 1971, as Hulanicki and Fitz-Simon set about planning the expansion of their business into
420-436: A zoo. A fantasy land of colorful, swirling, psychedelic bubbles provided the perfect backdrop for a Clearasil ad. As Brian Wells explains, "The psychedelic movement has, through the work of artists, designers, and writers, achieved an astonishing degree of cultural diffusion… but, though a great deal of diffusion has taken place, so, too, has a great deal of dilution and distortion." Even the term "psychedelic" itself underwent
462-475: Is art , graphics or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD , psilocybin , and DMT . Coined by British psychologist Humphry Osmond , the term "psychedelic" means "mind manifesting". By that definition, all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic". In common parlance "psychedelic art" refers above all to
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#1732855442827504-836: Is (arguably) not a real psychedelic, but is described by psychologists as an entactogen . Development of new psychedelics such as 2C-B and related compounds (developed primarily by chemist Alexander Shulgin ) which are truly psychedelic has provided a fertile ground for artistic exploration since many of the new psychedelics possess their own unique properties that will affect the artist's vision accordingly. Even as fashions have changed, and art and culture movements have come and gone, certain artists have steadfastly devoted themselves to psychedelia. Well-known examples are Amanda Sage , Alex Grey , and Robert Venosa . These artists have developed unique and distinct styles that while containing elements that are "psychedelic", are clearly artistic expressions that transcend simple categorization. While it
546-431: Is a recognized authority on the history of LSD blotter art. By the late 1960s, the commercial potential of psychedelic art had become hard to ignore. General Electric, for instance, promoted clocks with designs by New York artist Peter Max. A caption explains that each of Max's clocks "transposes time into multi-fantasy colors." In this and many other corporate advertisements of the late 1960s featuring psychedelic themes,
588-582: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Steve Thomas (artist) With design partner Tim Whitmore , Thomas led the small team which generated numerous designs and branding for the company's ambitious seven-storey department store known as "Big Biba" in London's Kensington High Street in the early to mid-1970s. In the 1960s, Thomas represented groups including Peter Frampton 's group The Herd and went on to create designs for such music business clients as
630-461: Is informed by the notion that altered states of consciousness produced by psychedelic drugs are a source of artistic inspiration. The psychedelic art movement is similar to the surrealist movement in that it prescribes a mechanism for obtaining inspiration. Whereas the mechanism for surrealism is the observance of dreams, a psychedelic artist turns to drug induced hallucinations. Both movements have strong ties to important developments in science. Whereas
672-677: The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney as well as brands such as Levi's , Lucky Strike , Subaru and British American Racing . With Alwyn W. Turner , Thomas is the author of Welcome To Big Biba. In 2008, Thomas was the subject of the exhibition Big Biba And Other Stories at London gallery Chelsea Space . Thomas was born in Chipping Norton. He attended Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith , west London, and studied painting at Chelsea School of Art , supplementing his grant with work as
714-567: The 1960s psychedelic art movement were San Francisco poster artists such as: Rick Griffin , Victor Moscoso , Bonnie MacLean , Stanley Mouse & Alton Kelley , Bob Masse , and Wes Wilson . Their psychedelic rock concert posters were inspired by Art Nouveau , Victoriana, Dada , and Pop Art . The "Fillmore Posters" were among the most notable of the time. Richly saturated colors in glaring contrast, elaborately ornate lettering, strongly symmetrical composition, collage elements, rubber-like distortions, and bizarre iconography are all hallmarks of
756-510: The American counterculture. Beatnik poets Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs became fascinated by psychedelic drugs as early as the 1950s as evidenced by The Yage Letters (1963). The Beatniks recognized the role of psychedelics as sacred inebriants in Native American religious ritual, and also had an understanding of the philosophy of the surrealist and symbolist poets who called for
798-520: The Land of the Tarahumara (1937) and Henri Michaux who wrote of his experiments with mescaline and hashish in his 1956 novel, Misérable Miracle . Aldous Huxley 's The Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956) remain definitive statements on the psychedelic experience. Albert Hofmann and his colleagues at Sandoz Laboratories were convinced immediately after its discovery in 1943 of
840-683: The London Transport Silver Jubilee Buses, a model village for restaurateurs the Roux Brothers, projects for Levi-Strauss, Pepsi-Cola, the BBC, Lloyds Bank and restaurants such as the revolving CN Tower in Toronto and Mon Plaisir in central London. Following the dissolution of WTA, Thomas focused on painting as well as producing the book Welcome To Big Biba, which was published in 2006 and remains in print. Thomas's exhibition at Chelsea Space
882-787: The San Francisco psychedelic poster art style. The style flourished from about 1966 to 1972. Their work was immediately influential to vinyl record album cover art, and indeed all of the aforementioned artists also created album covers. Although San Francisco remained the hub of psychedelic art into the early 1970s, the style also developed internationally: British artist Bridget Riley became famous for her Op art paintings of psychedelic patterns creating optical illusions. Mati Klarwein created psychedelic masterpieces for Miles Davis' Jazz-Rock fusion albums, and also for Carlos Santana's Latin rock . Pink Floyd worked extensively with London-based designers, Hipgnosis to create graphics to support
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#1732855442827924-543: The September 1, 1967 issue at the height of the Summer of Love focused on the explosion of psychedelic art on posters and the artists as leaders in the hippie counterculture community. Psychedelic light-shows were a new art-form developed for rock concerts. Using oil and dye in an emulsion that was set between large convex lenses upon overhead projectors the lightshow artists created bubbling liquid visuals that pulsed in rhythm to
966-439: The art movement of the late 1960s counterculture , featuring highly distorted or surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation (including cartoons) to evoke, convey, or enhance psychedelic experiences . Psychedelic visual arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music . Concert posters, album covers, liquid light shows , liquid light art, murals, comic books, underground newspapers and more reflected not only
1008-478: The complexities of colour". On graduation, Thomas formed a design practice with fellow student Whitmore. Among Whitmore-Thomas Design's early commissions was the back cover of the Rolling Stones' 1970 live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! , which was completed within 48 hours to meet the record company Decca's deadline for the record release. Thomas later related that this was given Mick Jagger's seal of approval with
1050-401: The concepts in their albums. Willem de Ridder created cover art for Van Morrison. Los Angeles area artists such as John Van Hamersveld , Warren Dayton and Art Bevacqua and New York artists Peter Max and Milton Glaser all produced posters for concerts or social commentary (such as the anti-war movement) that were highly collected during this time. Life Magazine's cover and lead article for
1092-710: The entirety of the Whitmore-Thomas archive, with materials relating to 35 years of commissions. This follows the V&;A's 1995 acquisition of material relating to Whitmore-Thomas's design work for Biba, including interiors, graphics and packaging. Subsequently, the V&A took possession of WT's Biba photographic archive, which contains work-in-progress & record shots of the completed project taken by Tim White and Tim Street-Porter. The 2020 acquisition includes designs for Paul McCartney’s central London offices as well farms and recording studios, liveries for Formula One racing teams,
1134-614: The graphics software seems to permit a direct translation of the psychedelic vision. The "digital revolution" was indeed heralded early on as the "New LSD" by none other than Timothy Leary . The rave movement of the 1990s was a psychedelic renaissance fueled by the advent of newly available digital technologies. The rave movement developed a new graphic art style partially influenced by 1960s psychedelic poster art , but also strongly influenced by graffiti art, and by 1970s advertising art, yet clearly defined by what digital art and computer graphics software and home computers had to offer at
1176-801: The hippies had struggled so hard to change. Examples of other psychedelic art material are tapestry, blacklight posters printed with fluorescent ink against backgrounds of velvet black which are intended for display under an ultraviolet lamp which causes the colors to glow in the dark, paisley printed cloths, tie-dyed or batiked curtains and stickers with designs and slogans written in loopy, art nouveau-like fonts, clothing, canvas and other printed artefacts and furniture. Computer art has allowed for an even greater and more profuse expression of psychedelic vision. Fractal generating software gives an accurate depiction of psychedelic hallucinatory patterns, but even more importantly 2D and 3D graphics software allow for unparalleled freedom of image manipulation. Much of
1218-401: The kaleidoscopically swirling colour patterns typical of psychedelic hallucinations, but also revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by insights derived from these psychedelic states of consciousness. Psychedelic visual art is a broad, widely-represented term, though it is commonly identifiable by its use of one or more of the listed subject matters: Psychedelic art
1260-403: The large block previously operated as Derry & Tom's at 107-111 Kensington High Street, Whitmore-Thomas was commissioned to handle the designs for the entire store, including interiors, signage, giant display items and graphic designs for the hundreds of own-brand product lines. The distinctive department logos were designed by illustrator Kasia Charko . On opening in September 1973, Big Biba
1302-550: The livery for 25 buses on the Number 77 route, which passed Buckingham Palace in the Silver Jubilee year of 1977, the design practice serviced such clients as Danone , Guinness , Harrods , Lucky Strike , Pepsi Cola , Virgin , and Wrangler . The company became WTA when designer Chris Angell, who had worked with Thomas and Whitmore on Big Biba, became a director in 1993. In June 2020, London's Victoria & Albert Museum acquired
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1344-414: The music. This was mixed with slideshows and film loops to create an improvisational motion picture art form to give visual representation to the improvisational jams of the rock bands and create a completely "trippy" atmosphere for the audience. The Brotherhood of Light were responsible for many of the light-shows in San Francisco psychedelic rock concerts. Out of the psychedelic counterculture also arose
1386-509: The power and promise of LSD. For two decades following its discovery LSD was marketed by Sandoz as an important drug for psychological and neurological research. Hofmann saw the drug's potential for poets and artists as well, and took great interest in the German writer Ernst Jünger 's psychedelic experiments. Early artistic experimentation with LSD was conducted in a clinical context by Los Angeles–based psychiatrist Oscar Janiger . Janiger asked
1428-495: The practice as in-house designers for his domestic and business interests, including the headquarters of McCartney's company PML in central London's Soho Square (complete with a recreation of his favourite Abbey Road studio in the basement), as well as recording studios in Sussex and on the Mull of Kintyre and private residences in London, Liverpool, Sussex and Scotland. As well as creating
1470-643: The psychedelic art movement include Lautreamont , Louis-Ferdinand Celine , Stanislav Witkevich , Antonin Artaud , Georges Bataille , William Burroughs , De Quincey , Terence McKenna , and Carlos Castaneda . Early examples of "psychedelic art" are literary rather than visual, although there are some examples in the Surrealist art movement, such as Remedios Varo and André Masson . Other early examples include Antonin Artaud who writes of his peyote experience in Voyage to
1512-447: The psychedelic product was often kept at arm's length from the corporate image: while advertisements may have reflected the swirls and colors of an LSD trip, the black-and-white company logo maintained a healthy visual distance. Several companies, however, more explicitly associated themselves with psychedelica: CBS, Neiman Marcus, and NBC all featured thoroughly psychedelic advertisements between 1968 and 1969. In 1968, Campbell's soup ran
1554-406: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steve_Thomas&oldid=1120399803 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1596-412: The surrealist was fascinated by Freud's theory of the unconscious, the psychedelic artist has been literally "turned on" by Albert Hofmann 's discovery of LSD. Mikhail Bulgakov was the first writer to describe narcotic hallucinations .Art researchers Tim Lapetino and James Orok trace the connection of psychedelic art with Dadaism , Surrealism , Lettrism , and Situationism . Notable figures within
1638-441: The time of creation. Conversely, the convolutional neural network DeepDream finds and enhances patterns in images purely via algorithmic pareidolia . Concurrent to the rave movement, and in key respects integral to it, are the development of new mind-altering drugs, most notably, MDMA (Ecstasy). Ecstasy, like LSD, has had a tangible influence on culture and aesthetics , particularly the aesthetics of rave culture . But MDMA
1680-507: The utterance "I dig your work, man." Thomas also created a record sleeve for Three Week Hero, an LP by PJ Proby and a rare cartoon cover for the obscure progressive rock outfit Rumpelstiltskin scripted by journalist/columnist Angus McGill. In the late 60s, Thomas designed a poster to promote a new range of cosmetics from Biba, the boutique operated by Barbara Hulanicki and her husband Stephen "Fitz" Fitz-Simon , at that stage situated at 124-126 Kensington Church Street. The poster, featuring
1722-517: Was described by The Sunday Times as "the most beautiful store in the world". Big Biba closed in August 1975 after falling victim to a combination of over-ambition, in-fighting between the company's executives and the backers, property developer British Land and the UK's mid-70s economic recession. The work for Big Biba drew a fresh set of commissions for Whitmore-Thomas, including Paul McCartney, who appointed
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1764-611: Was held in 2008. Thomas, who has also staged one-man shows at the Chelsea Arts Club and Dorchester Collections, is based in Deal, Kent, where he continues to produce artworks and make prints. On July 12, 2017, Thomas appeared in the BBC Radio 4 series Only Artists in conversation with fellow artist Jim Moir (better known as comedian Vic Reeves ). Psychedelic art Psychedelic film Psychedelic art (also known as psychedelia )
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