Illustration and Interior Design ’62
The visionary illustrator Antonio Lopez (1943–1987) turned everything he touched into art. Beginning in the early 1960s, Antonio, as he was known, along with partner Juan Ramos, Interior Design ’62, brought sex, street style, and people of color into fashion drawings. (Ramos died in 1995.) The pair, originally from Puerto Rico, worked for designers Missoni, Oscar de la Renta, and Charles James; their work appeared in Vogue, GQ, Interview, and many other publications. These sketches show how this illustrator, even working in a private mode, was incapable of being mundane; every stroke of his pen is thrilling. —Alex Joseph
This special editorial advertisement for [designer] Silvano Malta was created as a special insert for Vogue Italia in 1975. The page includes an illustration of Malta’s designs, along with a fabric swatch and several Kodak Instamatics of Silvano himself, taken by Antonio.
These “visual diaries” were part of an art project Juan and Antonio created over a period of several months in 1978. Antonio and Juan were very busy during this period, working on daily full-page ads for Saks Fifth Avenue for The New York Times, as well as editorial content for various magazines. At the end of each day, they would make an entry in a spiral notebook that detailed what had transpired at the studio, including photos of who had stopped by, who modeled for them, invitations to parties, letters and postcards, et cetera. Each page was a collaboration, incorporating Polaroid photos by both of them, drawings by Antonio, collage and design elements by Juan, and graphics by both; they would plan the layouts together. —Devon and Paul Caranicas, Directors, The Estate and Archive of Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos