Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Illustration: A Visual Feast
I'm in the process of revamping our Jump Page in anticipation of our bi-annual fundraising drive which begins May 1st. The massive amount of posts linked there are bunched into poorly organized clumps, so it's time for some housework. As I revise the sections, I will post them to give you a chance to check out all the incredible things we've brought you over the past two and a half years. I hope this will inspire you to support us with a contribution in May.
Illustration

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive isn't just an archive OF animation... it's an archive FOR animators. There's a subtle but important distinction there... One of the aspects of modern animation that could stand improvement is design. Too many current animated films ignore the importance of appealing design, or lean too heavily on the designs of other animated films. There's absolutely no reason why every princess, king or mouse should look like princesses, kings and mice from previous films. There's a wide world of design inspiration to be found in the history of illustration. Here's just a sampling of the important material related to illustration contained in the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Database...
CLASSIC ILLUSTRATION

One of the primary projects of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is to gather together the reference materials that inspired the artists who made animated cartoons in the golden age. It's a little known fact that every animation studio had a library of children's books for the reference of the background painters and designers. Rare editions of Rackham, Dulac and Wyeth sat on the shelves at studios in both New York and in Hollywood. Many great children's book illustrators worked for a time in animation, including Kay Nielsen, Gustaf Tenggren and Willy Pogany.
BLAND TOMTAR OCH TROLL: John Bauer 1915 / Einar Norelius 1929 / Einar Norelius 1934 / Bauer & Norelius 1944 & 1949
KAY NIELSEN: East of the Sun and West of the Moon / Twelve Dancing Princesses / Hansel & Gretel
ARTHUR RACKHAM: Grimm's Fairy Tales Part One / Part Two
EDMUND DULAC; Hans Christian Anderson Part One and Part Two / Poe's Poetical Works / Tanglewood Tales
MILO WINTER: Aesop For Children
GUSTAF TENGGREN (CLASSIC STYLE): Small Fry And The Winged Horse / D'Aulnoy's Fairy Tales, Good Dog Book / Heidi - Wonderbook - Juan & Juanita / Grimms Fairy Tales Part One and Part Two (See also Gustaf Tenggren under Golden Book Style below.)
WILLY POGANY: Willy Pogany's Drawing Lessons / Sketchbook / Mother Goose
OTHER CLASSIC ILLUSTRATORS: Maxfield Parrish's Arabian Nights (1909) / N. C. Wyeth's Legends of Charlemagne / Mabel Lucie Attwell's Peter Pan and Wendy / Frank Reynolds Paints Pickwick / W. Lee Hankey's Quiet Village Part One and Part Two / Monks By Eduard von Grutzner
MODERN ILLUSTRATION

From the 1920s through the late 1950s, magazines featured the work of some of the top talents in the art world. Leindecker, Artzybasheff, Szyk and Hurst were all great artists whose work has a lot to offer today's cartoonists and character designers. Thanks to Archive Supporters Mike Fontanelli and Kent Butterworth, we've been able to bring many of these great names to your attention.
BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF: As I See: Neurotica, Machinalia and Diablerie
LAWSON WOOD: The Monkey Painter Part One and Part Two
WARTIME PROPAGANDA: Arthur Szyk: The New Order / WWI Propaganda Posters / WWII Propaganda Posters
COLLIERS MAGAZINE: Mid-1930s Illustrations and Advertisements / WWII Era Illustrations / Late 40s Illustrations
CORONET MAGAZINE: Bugs Bunny: A Hare Grows In Manhattan 1945 / Disney's Casey At The Bat / Harper Goff's Blood On The Moon
GOLDEN BOOK STYLE

Thanks to a generous donation by Archive Supporter John Kricfalusi, we are able to share the beautiful work of the great artists who made a fortune for Western Publishing's Little Golden Book line. The style was created by Disney concept artist, Gustaf Tenggren and reached its peak in books by Mel Crawford. Many animation artists moonlighted as children's book illustrators... among them Norm McCabe, Harvey Eisenberg, Mary Blair and J. P. Miller.
GUSTAF TENGGREN: Tenggren's Tell It Again Book Part One and Part Two / Sing for Christmas / The Little Trapper (See also Gustaf Tenggren under Classic Illustration above.)
FEODOR ROJANKOVSKY: Frog Went A-Courtin'
TIBOR GERGELY: A Day In The Jungle
MARY BLAIR: Mary Blair's Baby's House / Little Verses Part One and Part Two / The New Golden Song Book Part One, Part Two and Part Three
MEL CRAWFORD: Rootie Kazootie Joins The Circus
AL WHITE: Rocky & His Friends / Huck Hound Builds A House
DISNEY: Early 50s Disney Christmas Cards / Disney's Uncle Remus Stories Part One and Part Two
RECORD ALBUMS: 50s & 60s LP Covers Part One and Part Two / Bozo And His Rocket Ship
PLAYBOY CARTOONISTS

In the 1950s and 60s, Playboy magazine employed many of the most talented cartoonists of the day. There's a lot to learn from these beautiful and deceptively simple cartoons. Many of them are models of color harmony, composition and staging. There's also a wide variety of styles, from the fast watercolor washes of Eldon Dedini to the carefully rendered airbrush work of Alberto Vargas. Style is something sadly lacking in a lot of cartooning today. These cartoons have style in abundance.
ERICH SOKOL: Early Sokol Cartoons / More Erich Sokol / A Passel of Sokol
ELDON DEDINI: Introducing Dedini / Satyrs & Nymphs / Dedini in the Swingin' 60s
HARVEY KURTZMAN & WILL ELDER: Little Annie Fanny Part One, Part Two and Part Three
OTHER PLAYBOY CARTOONISTS: Jack Cole And More Great 50s Playboy Cartoonists / A Jack Cole Valentine / Meet Doug Sneyd / Doug Sneyd - Phil Interlandi / More Phil Interlandi Playboy Cartoons
PINUP ARTISTS: Alberto Vargas / George Petty's Ridgid Tools Calendars and the 1947 Petty Girl Calendar / John Held Jr's Flappers
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Labels: illustration, meta





























2 Comments:
I wouldn't say that Tenggren created that "Golden Book" look. Although, he was one of the first to fully explore that style, it was mostly a zeitgeist thing, not started by one particular person. Gotta be careful when making statements like that.
Maybe you should rename it the "ASIFA-Hollywood Animators Archive."
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