Media: Arthur Rackham's Grimm's Fairy Tales Part Two

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for more jaw dropping images from classic illustrated books.

Today, we complete our collection of Arthur Rackham's images from a 1909 edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales. (If you missed our previous post, see... Rackham's Grimm's Fairy Tales Part One.)

Along with Edmund Dulac, (see our previous postings of his work... Poe's Poetical Works, H. C. Andersen Stories, and Tanglewood Tales) Rackham was one of the most popular book illustrators of the early 20th century.

Walt Disney admired Rackham's watercolor and pen & ink style, and instructed Gustaf Tenggren (see our previous postings of his work... Small Fry and the Winged Horse, Three Early Tenggren Books, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and The Little Trapper) to work with Claude Coates and Sam Armstrong to adapt it for use in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In animation backgrounds however, the sinewy Rackham line was overly busy, distracting from the characters; so Tenggren evolved towards the more dimensional painting style in Pinocchio, which set the standard for Disney cartoons throughout the 1940s.

















See also... Rackham's Grimm Part One, and Tenggren's Grimm's Fairy Tales Part One
and Part Two

If you would like to explore more golden age illustration, see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The Archive Project.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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