Eye Magazine

The evening of 13 October 2008 was unseasonably chilly as a stream of limos purred by the entrance of the Design Museum at its former location in Shad Thames, London. It was the private view of ‘The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes’ (see Eye 70), a retrospective of the work of Alan Aldridge. Four decades on from the heady days of the 1960s, the designer was almost unrecognisable from the ‘flower power’ character sporting shoulder-length, dyed-blond hair. Now bald, bespectacled, frail-looking and dressed in black, he was the star of the evening, photographed with pop musicians Sting and Elton John and a bevy of filmmakers, supermodels and royals. There were 3D cut-outs and enormous blow-ups of characters from Aldridge’s work, and even two naked models, their bodies adorned with psychedelic illustrations.

Amid the blizzard of colour and celebrity that evening was designer and illustrator Harry Willock. Few who were there knew of him, or the fact that more than 70 per cent of the works on display had been produced by Willock, a man four years Aldridge’s senior, who had spent three decades behind the scenes. The story of Aldridge’s career, or at least the version Aldridge himself carefully maintained throughout his lifetime, has been told all too often. But there is a different picture, painted by a different hand, and this is what is presented here …