Visions by Walter Hopps

Visions
Introduction by Walter Hopps
Pomegranate, 1977

Along with Eschatus by Bruce Pennington, and Beauty and the Beast by Chris Achilleos, another must-have book in the library of every 70s stoner was Visions, from 'hippie' art publisher Pomegranate (96 pp., 1977).

Visions profiled the works of seven artists: Sheila Rose, Bill Martin, Cliff McReynolds, Gage Taylor, Thomas Akawie, Nick Hyde, and Joseph Parker, who together comprised what has been referred to as the 'California Visionary' school of art. 

Some of these artists were active in the poster movement that took place in San Francisco in the late 60s, and flourished in the 70s: for example, McReynold's 1975 painting The Arrival was one of the 'trippy' posters advertised in the pages of Heavy Metal magazine. Others, like Gage Taylor, not only embraced poster art, but exhibited their works in galleries devoted to 'visionary' or 'New Age' art.

Detail from 'The Arrival' by Cliff McReynolds, 1975

Walter Hopps was the curator of 20th-Century American Art at the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts from 1972 to 1979. His Introduction in Visions is a textbook example of the pretentious prose style that was a standard feature of any 1970s art, music, and film critic:

Akawie is further removed from a Pharaonic orthodoxy by his incongruous, ecumenical inclusion of sinuous Art Noveau decorative motifs within the frame of his historically derived design, recollected from his youth among the movie palaces and exotic architecture of Hollywood. In general, Akawie's affinity with Egypt is more vibrational than archaeological, and he explores this esoteric symbolism as vocabulary, rather than as personal belief.

Turning from Hopps's verbiage to the artworks on display in the pages of Visions, it's immediately clear that (with the exception of Sheila Rose, whose paintings seem bland and simplistic when compared to the other artists) its profilees are meticulous craftsmen, dedicated to cramming their pieces with detailed renditions of every aspect of their hallucinatory landscapes.

Unfortunately, the rather small dimensions of Visions (10.7 x 8.3 inches) means that my scans of the printed artwork really can't adequately communicate these intricate details. 

In a perfect world, the artists profiled in Visions would have received considerable more notice and fame than they otherwise earned. That, however, doesn't detract from the trippy, hallucinatory, surrealistic excellence of the work presented in the book. 

If you are a devotee of this type of art, then a copy of Visions - which can be had from your usual online used book vendors for affordable prices - very much deserves to be in your library.