A piece of art in focus - Pure Evil's 'Frank Sinatra's Nightmare' Ava Gardner, from his nightmare series.
- Paul Connor
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
About Pure Evil
Pure Evil is a UK based graffiti artist and all round creative force in the community and culture.
Pure Evil is Charles Uzzell-Edwards.
Born in South Wales in 1968 – the son of the prolific painter John Uzzell Edwards.
After spending the nineties in California where graffiti had a huge influence on his streetwear designs before he started music recording in San Francisco.
Pure Evil returned to the UK with spray can in hand to haunt the streets with the bunny that haunted him since childhood.
Without really planning too, in 2007 Pure Evil opened a gallery in Shoreditch which continues to be a thriving hub for emerging artists.
Pure Evil Nightmare Series
This series of Pure Evil prints were inspired by an email he received from a ‘copy village’ in China.
It listed the various famous artists paintings they could reproduce for him.
“Warhol had 3 pieces in the list, a Jackie, a Liz and an Electric Chair. It seemed the kind of thing that Warhol would have been fascinated by.
His whole output had been distilled to three beautiful dark images. In a way the ‘nightmare’ series takes this a step further.
I am making myself a kind of ‘copy village’ celebrating the dark side of celebrity worship.”
Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner
Frank Sinatra was married to Hollywood actress Ava Gardner from 1951 to 1957. It was a turbulent marriage with many well-publicized fights and altercations.
The couple formally announced their separation on October 29, 1953, through MGM.
Gardner filed for divorce in June 1954, at a time when she was dating matador Luis Miguel Dominguín, but the divorce was not settled until 1957.
Frank Sinatra continued to feel very strongly for her and they remained friends for life.
She was the raven-haired, ruby-lipped starlet who wowed fans with her smouldering screen presence. He was Ol' Blue Eyes, the diminutive yet commanding baritone whose singing was matched only by his acting. Though Gardner and Sinatra were the epitome of old-school chic, appearances can be deceiving.
Behind closed doors, both stars were deeply troubled individuals, and in time, their marriage inevitably turned toxic. Gardner, for instance, had a legendary bad girl reputation — this was, after all, the woman who was once banned from the Ritz for urinating in the lobby, or so the legend goes. Sinatra's profile, meanwhile, was something of a precursor to Beatlemania in its sheer ability to ignite the passions of hordes of screaming young women in his 1940s heartthrob heyday. Together, the two were dynamite. But of course, it doesn't take much to set dynamite off. From their boozy first date to their poignant goodbye, let's take a look inside Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra's relationship.
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