Artwork from Orson Welles Portfolio: Sketches and Drawings from the Welles Estate. It will be published by Titan Books on February 19.
Beatrice Welles’ long-promised collection of her father’s artwork is heading to bookstores in the new year.
Orson Welles Portfolio: Sketches and Drawings from the Welles Estate will be published by Titan Books on February 19.
The 192-page tome, available in the U.S. and U.K., will be 12-by-9 inches in size. It includes amusing self-portraits and sketches of productions ranging from stage shows to motion pictures.
It is authored by Simon Braund, who edited the book The Greatest Movies You’ll Never See and has written for Empire magazine, The Sunday Times, Q magazine, The Observer, and Time Out.
Orson Welles Portfolio will carry a $50 list price, though it is available for pre-order through Amazon and Walmart for $27.50. and Target for $31.45. Barnes and Noble is offering it at $45.
Welles, who briefly studied at the Art Institute of Chicago as a youth, traveled and painted throughout the Irish countryside at the age of 16 in 1931. After his stage success at the Gate Theatre Dublin, Welles embarked on a career as an actor and director, first in theater and later in radio and motion pictures.
But Welles continued to draw and paint throughout his life, for his own private pleasure. When he died in October 1985, he left behind hundreds of character sketches, set designs, visualizations of unmade projects, illustrations to entertain his children and friends, doodles in the margins of personal letters, and portraits of the people and places that he loved.
(My father) started off as painter, but there is a mish mash of sketches, drawings, oil paintings, Christmas cards,” Beatrice Welles‘ told Wellesnet four years ago after uncovering a trove of his artwork. “So much is lost. He did sketches of sets and costumes for every movie he did.”
Beatrice Welles recently collaborated with director Mark Cousins on the documentary The Eyes of Orson Welles, which examined Welles stage shows and films through is artwork. The acclaimed documentary premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
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