January 2012
2 posts
gladys emma peto, 1890-1977
Gladys Peto is my favorite new find. She was an English illustrator as well as a fashion designer - which explains all the beautiful frocks she puts her little girls in. The girls in these illustrations look dainty and proper, but they also look like dreamers, wistful for adventure. Peto was unusual for being a female commercial artist at the beginning of the 20th century.
[click...
hilary knight's beauty and the beast, 1963
This book was one of my favorites in my grandmother’s library. I love Hilary Knight’s color schemes and the big hair and poofy gowns. All of his figures seem to be posing as if they were in a ballet with their fingers positioned just so and their toes turned out.
[click images for original sources]
December 2011
1 post
edmund dulac's illustrations of the snow queen
from The Snow Queen and Other Stories, by Hans Christian Andersen, 1912
all images from http://www.artpassions.net/
October 2011
2 posts
kate greenaway, 1846-1901
I was recently reading about Kate Greenaway and discovered something I had never really noticed about her drawings. The author of the essay I read pointed out the distinct melancholy present in nearly all of her drawings; the children playing never seem to be enjoying the games they play. Instead, they stare blankly as if bored. And yet at first glance, the images seem to be cheerful scenes of...
charles robinson, 1870–1937
[click images for original sources]
September 2011
2 posts
miss moppet looks worse and worse.
from The Story of Miss Moppet by Beatrix Potter
[click image for original source]
the enchanted forest chronicles, illustrated by...
Before I was familiar with Trina Schart Hyman’s wonderful illustrations, I was obsessed with the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede. I wanted to be Princess Cimorene who left her dull life learning palace etiquette to live with dragons and make cherries jubilee for their celebrations. Hyman’s covers capture the fantastic stories inside.
Click images for original...
August 2011
1 post
cats.
Apart from children, animals are probably the favorite subject of many picture books, and of all the animals, perhaps none is so fun to look at as the cat.
from Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag
from Jenny and the Cat Club, by Esther Averill
from The Fire Cat, by Esther Averill
Cover of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot, illustrations by Edward Gorey
from...
July 2011
1 post
James and the Giant Peach illustrated by Nancy...
I recently revisited Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach with illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert, whose illustrations for Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs, by Randall Jarrell, I adore (they won a Caldecott Award in 1973). She’s only illustrated a handful of books in her lifetime, but all that I’ve seen are incredibly detailed and beautiful. The color plates in this book are...
June 2011
1 post
nancy ekholm burkert, 1933 -
May 2011
4 posts
special collections part 3: dulac's "a fairy...
Dulac’s Lyrics, Pathetic and Humorous (1908) was really bizarre. I only took a few pictures because I didn’t think the illustrations were as visually interesting as most of his other work. Also, a good portion of them were racist. I really like the shrimp boy though, and I think the troubadour on the endpapers is pretty funny and reminds me of the guy in Disney’s Sleeping...
special collections part 2: beatrix potter's "the...
This was mostly a Dulac trip but I also requested The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1931) for nostalgia’s sake. I didn’t spend much time with it but I hope to look at more Beatrix Potter illustrations in the future. The copy of Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, publishing date unknown) that I looked at had barely been opened before. I was afraid to break the binding and I was...
special collections trip part 1: edmund dulac's...
A special trip requires a special post. Yesterday I went to my school’s special collections and looked at five rare children’s books. They brought out the books for me and I had to look at them on foam blocks and use rope weights to hold down the pages. I wish that I had done this much earlier in the year. Here are my pictures from it - this first book is Fairies I Have Met by Rodolph...
jessie wilcox smith, 1863 - 1935
Photo Credits:
http://www.estatevaults.com/bol/archives/2007/11/25/home_libraries.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Jessie_Willcox_Smith_-_The_Water_Babies_-_p140.jpg
http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/rbsc2/ga/unseenhands/collection/F2DSC_0020.jpg
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lf4qmsZ9WR1qb0n4ho1_400.jpg
...
April 2011
8 posts
edmund dulac's beauty and the beast, 1910
Illustrations from The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales by Arthur Quiller-Couch, 1910
Photo Credit: http://dulac.artpassions.net/
arthur rackham's tales from shakespeare by charles...
illustrations from Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. London : J.M. Dent & Co. ; New York : E.P. Dutton & Co., 1909.
charles robinson's secret garden
illustrations from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911
Photo Credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36416297@N03/with/3412711134/
http://www.foliosociety.com/book/SGN/secret-garden
trina schart hyman
Illustrations from:
Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Snow White by Paul Heins
The Sleeping Beauty by Trina Schart Hyman
Photo Credits:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_QqE86ZB_XUI/TURUkA4N85I/AAAAAAAAEN4/i9eSjF3DYfs/s1600/Aurora.jpg
http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li2fvsep5s1qd1zpno1_500.jpg
...
more by edmund dulac
“The Mermaid in the Sea” from Stories from Hans Andersen
“Everything about her was white, glistening and shining.” from The Dreamer of Dreams by the Queen of Roumania
“The Princess and the Pea” from Stories from Hans Andersen
Photo Credits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edmund_Dulac_-_The_Mermaid_-_in_the_sea.jpg
http://dulac.artpassions.net/
"one of the strange things about living in the...
“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things...
“Flying is largely a matter of having the right attitude– plus, of course, good...”
–
[The Trumpet of the Swan, E. B. White]
Illustration by Edward Frascino
Photo Credit: http://www.arch.virginia.edu/struct/JTW-97/