Threshold Cover Art

Threshold had some very interesting covers by some very well known artists. Spring 1979 saw a cover designed/or taken from a painting by Louis Le Broquey. It's quite abstract expressionist and shouldn't work but it does. Patrick Scott's 1969 cover art is again great, even if the slightly busy text surrounding it, takes away from it a bit. Even 50 years later very few literary magazines don't have text on the cover, Abridged being a local exception. Clive Wilson's Summer 1974 cover is an interesting oddity. Gerard Dillon's Summer 1967, Issue 21 artwork is very of its time and rather two-toned psychedelic. We like to think there was a Summer of Love in Belfast. We know there probably wasn't. We're fans of the late 50s/early 60s abstract Constructivist-ish series of covers by the rather brilliant Deborah Brown and Alice Berger Hammerschlag. The use of the same image but with a different colour is very energetic and very effective. Likewise the Colin Middleton cover of the Summer 1976 issue (we know there was a hot summer in Belfast in 1976) we really like. The early issues are quite traditional and hark to the theatre but are notable by being by Belfast cartoonist Rowel Friers. Other notable cover artists were Neil Shawcross, John Middleton (son of Colin) and Anne Yeats. A few of these artists would also create Honest Ulsterman covers.