Psychedelic Eyes

London in the 1960s was a great place for artists, and every survivor of the decade has a story or two to tell. Alan Aldridge has dozens. In The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes: The Art of Alan Aldridge (Abrams), he recounts encounters with Cream (he designed the cover of Goodbye), the Who (the cover of A Quick One), the Rolling Stones (a poster for their ill-fated Rock and RollCircus) and the Beatles (an illustrated book of their lyrics). On one hand he was an English Peter Max in flowing fluorescent color. With what seemed like six other hands always busy, Aldridge's prolific versatility swung from whimsical to salacious, incorporating photography and typography, references to the fine arts and pop culture.

Autobiographies tend to be dull and self-serving, but even if Aldridge has an interest in polishing his accomplishments to an acute glow, he is never, not for a moment, a bore. Written with cranky zest and great gritty style, Kaleidoscope Eyes chronicles his scuffling days as an art student (not a bad painter from the examples reproduced) and his entry into London's commercial art milieu, where he worked on striking covers for Penguin paperbacks by Roald Dahl, Kingsley Amis and J.G. Ballard. As London shifted for a few colorful years from the capital of an expiring empire to worldwide mecca of pop culture, Aldridge was swept up in the maelstrom of rock and psychedelia.

Kaleidoscope Eyes is fun to read, but with its profusion of mostly color illustrations, it is even more fun to look at. Although his most significant years are history, Aldridge kept busy and didn't so much evolve stylistically as expand in all directions into children's books, Hard Rock Cafe ads, logos for all sorts of products and T-shirts for heavy metal bands.