I'm so glad this group exists!

CharlasGolden Age Illustrators

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I'm so glad this group exists!

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1rare_bird
Mar 13, 2009, 9:30 pm

Just wanted to say hello to everyone here!

I've harbored a love of illustrated children's books for a while now, but I've only just recently delved into learning about the artists behind the works.

I'm eager to learn more, and look forward to sharing with you! Cheers!

2illustrationfan
Mar 13, 2009, 10:23 pm

Thanks for the invite!!! I'm an art history major and have collected, invested, and researched illustrators since I was about 10. This is a great place to share and comment on the illustrators of the Golden Age

3pageboy
Mar 14, 2009, 9:34 am

rare_bird
Welcome to the group. Yes, please do share your interests with us.

4rare_bird
Mar 14, 2009, 12:40 pm

Well, the images of Alice in Wonderland have haunted me since childhood, but I only just recently found out who Sir John Tenniel was.

I suppose you could say he's what started it for me.

Finding a book of Aubrey Beardsley in a box in an alley is what turned me on to him;

And recently Edmund Dulac has had me enchanted.

My favorites are the ones of fairy tales and mythology, but I'm still trying to collect names.

Oh! And thanks to illustrationfan for introducing me to Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein plates! Wow!

(conversely to my girlish love of fairy tale art, I also love dark comic book art too, so if you know anyone I should check out....)

5illustrationfan
Mar 14, 2009, 12:44 pm

Rare_bird (and others) You can check out many originals from your favorite illustrators (mostly modern), but some great golden age original art at:
www.comicartfans.com There are some pretty impressive collections from
Greg Land, Frank Cho, and others. Many great Wrightson Frankenstein original plate scans are on there also. Enjoy!!!

6unaluna
Editado: Mar 16, 2009, 7:43 pm

Hey all,
I was going through the folklore section of my university library today and found this: Fourty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales collected and translated by Dr. Ignácz Kúnos with illustrations by Willy Pogany published in 1913. Colour plates and everything. I found this link http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/ftft/index.htm.
Most of (if not all) the illustrations are posted there in addition to the stories themselves. I happily hauled my find home. I wish it was mine, but I will dutifully return it to the library. :)

7pageboy
Mar 16, 2009, 8:41 pm

unaluna, a great find. Why don't you make good quality scans of the plates (3oodpi.) and hold onto them. Scans of the plates alone would be a useful resource for the group. A pity we can't have an archive of illustrations connected with the group. I already have hundreds of scans in my own archive, and I don't mind sharing them with the group.I will have to look into this.
I have Pogany's 'The Hungarian Fairy Book' - only one colour plate but lots of drawings. I find that the colour reproduction of so many Pogany books doesn't do justice to the artwork.

8johnnyapollo
Mar 16, 2009, 10:12 pm

You could put them into flickr or a similar program then share them with the group. My stuff is under my same username: johnnyapollo (of course there are some directories up there that many of you won't find very interesting unless you're into old tools and such). But you could link directly to an illustration directory like so:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnyapollo/sets/72157606087200394/

(even though the subject matter isn't golden age, there are some neat illustrations in there by Frazetta, Jones and ohters).

9pageboy
Mar 17, 2009, 9:17 am

johnnapollo,

Thank you. I also have picture folders at Flickr. All of the various sets peole like yourself have uploaded there are a great resource for lovers of Golden Age Illustrators. I am still thinking of a way to co-ordinate that material so that it would have some kind of structure. A new pool perhaps where interested parties can contribute images from their own sets. My user name at flickr is bergmanesque.

10johnnyapollo
Mar 17, 2009, 4:17 pm

I've added you as a contact. Perhaps you should start a group at flickr for Golden Age Illustrators as well, so uploaded images can be tagged for the group? I do something similar for some of my other images.

11pageboy
Mar 17, 2009, 5:41 pm

Thank you for adding me to our contacts. I'm still having a problem navigating round flickr. Your suggestion is a good one. I hope I can work out how to tag images for inclusion in a group. Can you give me any advice (preferably at flickr)

12rare_bird
Mar 18, 2009, 1:18 am

johnnyapollo, I LOVE that flickr page of yours! It may not be "Golden Age", but perhaps it deserves it's very own group dedicated to cheesy cover-art. (Frazetta is amazing; I love his women!) Thanks for the link!

13jennieg
Abr 2, 2009, 2:17 pm

I'm so pleased to find this group! For many years, my love of illustrations has been regarded as a harmless oddity. I'm particulary fond of Kay Nielsen and Arthur Rackham. Not long ago, I finished The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, which has a nice discussion of the artists who illustrated his work.

14pageboy
Abr 2, 2009, 6:35 pm

Welcome to the group, jennieg. I must have look at the annotated Andersen. I wonder if it has an exhaustive list of illustrators. I have found quite often that some very effective illustrations of Andersen have been done by uncredited artists (in editions specifically aimed at children).

15unorna
Jun 6, 2009, 4:22 pm

Hi there! I'm a working artist from the U.K and I've been interested in Illustrators for many years. My favourites include:- Arthur Rackham
N.C Wyeth
Rene Bull
Harry Clarke
Edmund Dulac
Kay Nielsen.

I'm also fond of the great Pulp Illustrators.
What a brilliant site.

16pageboy
Jun 6, 2009, 7:06 pm

Welcome, unorna. An impressive list of favourites (I like them all too).

17unorna
Jun 7, 2009, 12:27 pm

Thanks, Pageboy. I was lucky enough to acquire a storybook with paintings by Harry Clarke a couple of years ago. Not a first edition, but good stuff!!
Have you a particular favourite?

18pageboy
Editado: Jun 7, 2009, 6:50 pm

unorna, I'd love to know which Harry Clarke book you have. Some years ago I had an edition of Hans Andersen illustrated by him. The plates were very striking but I felt that the colour ones were poorly reproduced. In spite of that I regret having sold it because the illustrations were so individual in feel. I doubt if I'll ever find another copy at a reasonable price. Clarke's illustrations for Poe are magnificent, and I am glad I have an edition that does them justice (Folio Society).
Have I a partcular favourite? I admire the work of so many illustrators - the great, the good and the neglected, but nothing has thrilled me so much as my first encounter with Rackham's illustrations for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. I had just entered my twenties when I was given an early editon of the work by a dear colleague who had received it when she was a child. Joan gave me some other wonderful books (By Dulac and Charles Robinson) and I owe her a debt of gratitude for making me aware of the work of the great illustrators.

19unorna
Jun 7, 2009, 7:53 pm

Hi, pageboy, the book is Charles Perrault's Classic Fairy Tales a facsimile edition, published by the Chancellor Press, containing 40 black and white illustrations and 12 colour plates. I think I acquired it about 10 years ago from a small bookshop that was closing down. The colour plates are quite reasonable and the black and whites, very well reproduced.
I also have Anderson's Fairy Tales with illustrations by Heath Robinson and a facsimile copy of Tales of king Arthur, with paintings and drawing by Arthur Rackham. Wasn't he just the greatest!!!!!! Your illustrated volume must be amongst your most prized possessions (jealousy, jealousy, jealousy)
I have some of the Clarke drawings for Poe's Tales in a very old and (now) tatty horror magazine called Castle of Frankenstein (now quite rare) I bought when I was 13. They are Awesome!!!!!!!!!!

20ParadigmTree
Ago 16, 2011, 1:57 am

Hi All,

I thought I would reactivate this thread, as I recent found out about this group. I'd like to echo the sentiments of the title, as I'm really happy that there is a group devoted to the appreciation of the Golden Age illustrators. I've always had a love for beautiful books, but its only recently that I've started to learn more about this era of book illustration, thanks in a large part to some of the facsimiles that are now available from publishers like Calla Editions and Folio Society. Its lovely to see some posts from members who seem to have an "in" with Calla too!
Anyway, just wanted to say hi and hopefully will contribute more to some of the interesting discussions here soon.

21frankcana
Ago 30, 2011, 12:22 am

Like rare-bird, I too would like to say hello.

I have 12 lovely old Rackhams, several Dulacs and Poganys and a scattering of others from the early 1900s.

Many, many years ago I began collecting Hugh Thomson, who illustrated books from 1884 to 1931. He drew beautiful young women, (Elizabeth Bennet) impossibly handsome young men (Darcy), elegant horse, every dog with a pedigree, and great characters.

I cnnot find another devotee. I have 50 or so books illustrated by Thomson, many of them classics, from Shakespeare to Jane Austen.

I have only just recently discovered LibraryThing and am in the process of cataloguing.

Slow, isn't it?

22bourneville
Editado: Sep 5, 2011, 9:43 am

Este mensaje fue borrado por su autor.

23pageboy
Sep 5, 2011, 9:45 am

frankcana, I share your affection for Hugh Thomson. It's only in the past couple of years I have actually been able to see copies of his larger format 'gift books' and I do prefer them to the standard Thomson volumes of Jane Austen etc. In the latter the drawings are exquisite but the smallness of the print is off-putting (I don't blame Thomon!) These drawings seem to have influenced later artists like the Brocks and E.H Shepherd. As for the larger volumes, his handling of colour is masterly. I'm thinking here of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor', 'As You Like It', 'School for Scandal','She Stoops to Conquer' and three of the J.M. Barrie plays. He has a wonderful gift for expressing emotions with a few deft lines. There was also a series of topographical books - I have seen a few of these. Are these in your collection?

Yes, cataloguing is slow!

24frankcana
Sep 6, 2011, 3:15 am

pageboy: I have most of, if not all of the Highways and Byways series illustrated by Thomson. Some of the sketches are charming, but many lack the apparent joy he had in drawing people and animals.

The only large scale b/w drawings I have are seven illustrations from the "English Illustrated Magazine" of April 1889 for the song 'A Hunting We Will Go.'

I have all of the larger books issued in colour such as "School for Scandal", but according to my catalogue produced by his friend Mrs Spielmann, he illustrated only two plays by Barrie; "Quality Street" & "The Admiral Crichton". Have you discovered another?

I have Arthur Rackham's "Midsummer Night's Dream" published by Heinemann; a June 1919 Impression of the 1908 first printing with the usual exquisite tipped-in plates.

I also have a facsimile of the manuscript book produced by Rackham and the scribe Graily Hewitt, c1928, now part of the Spencer Collection in the New York Public Library, published in 1977. The illustrations are quite different from the 1908 book, much bolder and close to monochrome. It was quite a find, in a bookshelf holding about a hundred books in all, in a little second-hand junk shop, in a small town in Tasmania, Australia. As I walked in the door my eyes saw it immediately. I could hardly believe it!!

Back to cataloguing.

252wonderY
Sep 6, 2011, 9:51 am

"As I walked in the door my eyes saw it immediately."

Not only that, it was probably calling to you, as well. It WANTEd a good home.

Happens to me, too.

26pageboy
Sep 6, 2011, 9:58 am

frankcana: First let me apologise for the Barrie blunder - of course there were only the two plays illustrated by Thomson.
It's natural, when you discover a great illustrator, that you want to see everything he has done. It's a bit of a let-down when you discover the duds among their work (I exclude Thomson!). I remember many years ago finding an edition of 'The Heroes' illustrated by Rackham. The art work was terrible! I can only assume it was an early work(it was undated).
Can you tell me more about the manuscript book produced by Rackham and Hewitt? Was it another version of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'?

27frankcana
Sep 6, 2011, 10:35 pm

pageboy: How silly of me. I prattled on without making it clear that the manuscript book was indeed of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream".

The title page states - A Midsummer Night's Dream, Written out by Graily Hewitt, Illustrated and decorated and the Cover designed by Arthur Rackham. ISBN 0 297 77777 7

My book, the facsimile, measures 12x9 inches, whereas the original manuscript is given as 151/4x 101/4 inches. The margins seem generous overall, but now and again a page will look a trifle cramped, especially if it contains a Rackham drawing, so I think the reduction in size is mainly, if not all, gained by trimming the margins. (I do like generous margins!)

The work was commissioned by the Spencer Collection directly from Rackham and Hewitt in 1929. "Reproduced from the original manuscript, the quality is exceptional and the book will be a joy to all Rackham fans and to all lovers of fine design."
About your comment on the quality of Rackham's work, here is an intertesting quote:
"His first published drawings appeared in 1884. In 1903 he married a fellow artist, Edyth Starkie, and it is from shortly after this date that he developed into the famous illustrator whose work is still sought and admired."

Do we need to say, "Thank you, Edyth?"

28pageboy
Sep 10, 2011, 7:55 pm

frankcana:"Thank you, Edyth?" Yes indeed!

Please accept my apologies for the late reply. My ageing laptop has let me down (again).

Thank you for the details of the Rackham/ Graily Hewitt 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. An unusual and interesting addition to the Rackham oeuvre. I wil have to look around for a copy. No doubt you know that Rackham illustrated yet another editon of this work, this time for the Limited Editions Club. I had the Easton Press version of the book. I was disappointed by the illustrations. Although they retained some of the magic of the earliest edition the execution had little of the grace and subtlety of the original plates. It wasn't too much of a struggle to part with the book when a dealer persuaded me to sell it to him. I photographed the plates and I can make them available to you and other members who might like to see them.

29frankcana
Sep 13, 2011, 4:43 am

pageboy: In my Profile gallery I have uploaded an image from "The Dream" so that you could see the approach Rackham took in his illustrations for this book, and how he sometimes combined them with Hewitt's writing.

30pageboy
Sep 13, 2011, 11:46 am

frankcana: Thank you! An entirely different venture for Rackham. These are decorations more than illustrations. In the context they are very effective. A true collaberation between the artist and the calligrapher. I'm grateful to you for making me aware of this book.