Rocky (1976)

Artwork by Tongdee

So you’re getting an education on the poster art of Tongdee Panumas in these first few posts here at TPB. Pretty soon you’ll be able to recognize his style at glace. Wow, what an arcane skill. You and I will then officially be able to hang.

As a born an bred, third generation Philadelphian, you can be sure that I came very close to soiling my pants when I first glimpsed this Thai Rocky poster. Not that Rocky is one of my favorite movies, but you know, the connection to my personal identity is slathered all over this poster. When else do I get to see a Thai representation of my motherland? Not often. 

In the bottom right corner, Tongdee painted the iconic Rocky- at-the-top-of-the-Art-Museum-steps scene. There he is, triumphant Balboa, looking out over the Ben Franklin Parkway, with the statue of General George Washington riding a horse prominently depicted. That’s my city, y’all!! There was no way I could walk past this poster without buying it. And so I did.

Back to the artwork of Tongdee. You know what the surest way to tell a Tongdee poster is? Besides finding his signature, the surest way to tell is to look at the structure of the composition. 

Tongdee was very fond of the triangle. In almost all his works, you will find the main content arranged in some triangular form. Take a look at this one, for example. Start tracing down from the top of Rocky’s extended glove, down through his head to his shoulder. Then move right, across all the little vignettes at the bottom. Once you get back to triumphant Rocky at the Art Museum steps, start tracing back up, through the Thai text and back to the extended glove.

See the triangle? Now go and look at the three previous Tongdee posts and you’ll begin to see a pattern. 

Besides the triangle aspect of his work, Tongdee’s faces tend have more life like features than most of the other Thai poster artists of his time. That’s why he was considered the top dog in the 70′s and 80′s.

I think that should be enough of Tongdee for now. I’ll move onto another artist’s work in the next post.