The late Visual Futurist Syd Mead will be celebrated in a rare East Coast exhibit in New York
Syd Mead, the late ‘Visual Futurist’, Industrial, and Automotive Designer, and Motion Picture Concept artist, passed away just over five years ago. But his work lives on, not just in the hearts and minds of his many fans, but also in exhibits of his work, which have traveled extensively after the Covid pandemic.
This Spring, a major exhibit of his work will be mounted in New York City, at a private gallery on West 26th Street. Future Pastime is the first major exhibit of his paintings in The Big Apple.
There is much admiration for Mead’s drawing – so draftsman-like, so geometric and expressive. But this exhibit focuses on his paintings, which truly brought us into his world.
Most of his work was painted in his favourite medium, gouache, which he noted, sarcastically, was “French for bitchy watercolour medium.” He was a true master of gouache and his paintings show it, with small intricate details and epic futuristic vistas.
In my remembrance of him* back in 2019, I noted:
“His was a world was larger than ours: the technology was bolder, magical even, the cars and transport more sleek and luxurious, the architecture more graceful and geometric, and the cities are both more optimistic, and bleakly pessimistic (Blade Runner) than our own. His renderings of life in outer space enlarged our vision beyond Earth to the stars.
The worlds his mind inhabited were ultra-modern, but with a sense of drama and pageantry. They were peopled with those more handsome, more beautiful, more muscular and more graceful than ourselves. Clothing these people (when they were clothed) were all manner of elegant capes and mantels that suggested great nobility and wealth. They seemed engaged in heroic acts even in the most mundane of circumstances.”
Mead worked with so many industry titans as well as Hollywood directors and producers that it would be impossible to note them all. But, to name a few, Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049), Brad Bird and Damon Landelof (Tomorrowland), Neil Blomkamp (Elysium) and George Lucas- one of the few private owners of Mead’s work.
As for me, I first met Syd Mead at an exhibit in San Francisco. I walked around the exhibit for an hour, marveling at the paintings and drawings. Then Mead and his entourage walked past me, late for a lecture he was to give to open the proceedings. They stopped nearby and I caught Mead’s eye. Still dumbstruck by the work and starstruck by the man, the only thing I could think to say was, “Thank you.”
He was being pulled away by that time, but he looked over his shoulder at me and gave a firm nod of his head. It was all that needed to be said.
It still is.
Future Pastime is on view at 534 West 26th Street, New York from March 27–May 21.
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