January 4, 2013

Guest Post for Chic Soufflé: The art of oranges and advertising

Any of you who know me well, or, that is, who know my blogger-self well, will probably recognize my close friend and fellow Valencian blogger's name, Chic Soufflé. Last year she wrote this great guest entry for me on "Valencia as a Modern Consumerist's City" (worth a second look right now, what with Reyes and Rebajas shopping about to start). As her blog attests, Chic Soufflé writes on an eclectic mixture of fashion, food and recipes, and art. And why not? The blog is a class act, and what unifies her wide variety of topics is a sense of good taste and a delicate, friendly writer's touch. And frankly, the recipes are mouth-wateringly delicious!



This week I was finally able to return the favor and write about one of my favorite subjects, oranges! Or really, orange labels and advertising. Yep, as it happened, thanks to another blogger friend of mine La Cuchara Curiosa, I had access to a bunch of old, vintage orange crate labels and ads, which are fun to look at, and even more fun to try to imagine what the designer was thinking when he or she created them.


This just gives you a taste of the kinds of imagery you'll see
on the guest entry I wrote for Chic Soufflé 

I encourage you to take a look at the entry on her blog and enjoy some of the beautiful, intense, whacky, and zany images used to sell Valencian oranges in the first half of the 20th century.

6 comments:

  1. DerekJanuary 4, 2013 at 11:41 AM

    The Museo de Taronja in Burriana has a wonderful collection of 'Orange Art' although sadly it has had to close temporarily. This article was written after a visit last year. http://bit.ly/UKxQGW

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  2. An American SpaniardJanuary 4, 2013 at 6:09 PM

    Hi Derek! Thank you for mentioning the Museu de Taronja. I'll have to check it out when it reopens. I love your posts on Valencia (especially the hand-painted sign, of which, much like street-art, there is a lot of nice examples throughout the city).

    I hope you can join us at the January 26th get together, but if not, maybe our paths will cross at some future Valencian happening.

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  3. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2013 at 2:57 PM

    An interesting book for you: "Historia de la Naranja", Vicente Abad (dir.). Editorial Prensa Valenciana, S.A. 1991. I think you can get it at "Librería París - Valencia".

    Sareb el Malo

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  4. An American SpaniardJanuary 6, 2013 at 5:38 PM

    Sareb el Malo (great name!), thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm adding this to my Reyes gift list for next year, or maybe my birthday just to get it sooner. What an interesting book. I've long considered writing a history of oranges in Valencia, to compare with oranges in California/Florida. So I'm collecting a library on the subject.

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  5. SorokinJanuary 15, 2013 at 2:37 AM

    OK. I made the comment in Chic Soufflé's blog, so I am not going to repeat it here, but last Summer I found in Brussels an orange with a very well known Spanish label: "Papillon", but with a small notice saying "produce of South Africa".

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  6. An American SpaniardJanuary 25, 2013 at 11:37 AM

    Hi Sorokin! I posted a reply there. As I said there, with globalization, there is (and with the orange trade) always has been a confusion over sourcing or "denomination of origin", such that I believe many Valencian oranges today actually come from Morocco, and many Californian oranges come from Baja California, Mexico.

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