Mailbag: Nice Surprises From Our Friends

We received a couple of nice surprises in the mail in the last week...

A couple of weeks ago, John Canemaker was in town to receive his career achievement, Winsor McCay Award at this year's Annie Awards... Here's ASIFA-Hollywood board member Frank Gladstone presenting John with his award...


John has been a supporter of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive since we started. You might remember the article on Bill Tytla that he shared with us last year... (Bill Tytla Part One and Part Two) John stopped by the Archive on his latest trip to see in person what we were working on, and he followed up his visit with this kind note...


Thanks for the kind words, John!

Yesterday, a courier stopped by the Archive with a package for us from Ralph Bakshi. Ralph has also been following our progress at the Archive from his home in New Mexico. One of the first articles I wrote here was a Tribute to Ralph, illustrated with Bakshi phone doodles. Later, Ralph himself contributed a two part article addressing the kids in the trenches in the CGI world. (Bakshi on 2D vs 3D Part One and Part Two). Now he sends us a copy of his new book...


BUY THIS BOOK!
If all you know about Bakshi is his rotoscope pictures, you're in for a surprise. Ralph is one of the most innovative and wildly creative geniuses of recent times. His influence on animation is immense. On the back cover, Frank Frazetta is quoted as saying, "Ralph Bakshi is one of the finest artists I've ever met." He isn't exaggerating a bit. Take a look at this incredible stuff...






This book is packed with incredible pictures like this! Artwork by Frank Frazetta, John Kricfalusi, Barry Jackson, Louise Zingarelli, Michael Ploog, Ian Miller, Irv Spence, Robert Dranko, Mark Kausler and Ambi Paliwoda.

UNFILTERED: The Complete Ralph Bakshi isn't one of those "art books" with postage stamp sized pictures floating in oceans of tasteful white space or huge text blocks of psudo-scholarly blather that crowds out the images. It's just pictures, pictures and more pictures... along with just enough text to put them in context. The book is organized to show Ralph's career from his earliest days at Terry-Toons, to his groundbreaking features, to his revolutionary TV work, to his most recent fine art paintings. Even if you think you know all there is to know about Bakshi, this book will grab you by the lapels and shake you and show you things you've never seen the likes of before. Click through the link to pick up the Bakshi book at Amazon.

Ralph Bakshi is animation's greatest living artist and one of the most influential animators in the history of the medium. If you don't realize that yet, READ THIS ARTICLE.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Illustration: Gemma on Illustration

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


You might remember me mentioning Gemma Ross the intern from Dartmouth who did incredible work on designing our database last Spring. Well, she's back for a little while until the end of Summer, and she is making great strides to take the database to the next level.

As she works on the database, Gemma has had the opportunity to see a lot of the amazing cartoons and images in the archive. She's been thinking about everything she's seen and has posted some of her theories to her blog, Los Gemeles Adventures! It's extemely gratifying for me to sit back quietly and watch the changes in the interns we have working here. Being surrounded great cartooning and wonderful artwork of all kinds has opened up their horizons and made them better artists and better people.

Gemma Ross on Classic Illustration

More Pretty Things From Gemma

Dulac's The Tempest

The beautiful illustrations Gemma comments on were contributed to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive by Minh Lai of Nocloo.com. Minh's site is worth bookmarking. It's a treasure trove of classic illustration and a great tribute to the artists who created these amazing visuals.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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Illustration: Tenggren's D'Aulnoy and Good Dog Book

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


Just in case you aren't convinced yet that Gustaf Tenggren is one of the most amazing children's book illustrators of all time, here are two more persuasive arguments. These two books were published in 1923 and 1924, a very busy period for Tenggren. He had recently relocated to New York City, and he illustrated no less than eight books in a very short period of time. Make sure to click through the links to our other Tenggren posts at the bottom of this article to see more of his beautiful work.













THE GOOD DOG BOOK






Lines and Colors posted a nice feature on Tenggren this week.

For more incredible illustration by Gustaf Tenggren, see Tenggren's Grimms Fairy Tales Part One and Part Two, Heidi, Wonderbook and Juan & Juanita, and Small Fry and the Winged Horse.

See also... Einar Norelius' Bland Tomtar Och Troll 1929 and 1934, John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll 1917, Arthur Rackham's Grimm's Fairy Tales Part One and Part Two.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

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Media: Kay Nielsen: Twelve Dancing Princesses

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 6 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about golden age illustration.


Kay Nielsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1886. His first success as an illustrator came with the book we digitized for inclusion in our media database today... "The Twelve Dancing Princesses". Nielsen differed from his contemporaries, who were steeped in the European tradition, by following the lead of artists from the art nouveau movement like Aubrey Beardsley, as well as Persian and Asian art.

Nielsen's interests shifted from book illustration to design for the theater; and in 1936, he was brought to Los Angeles to design a production at the Hollywood Bowl. He decided to join the Disney Studios as a concept artist and made a significant contribution to "Fantasia". In fact, you can see early precursors of the designs for the Pastoral Sequence in a couple of the illustrations from "Twelve Dancing Princesses" below.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive was fortunate to obtain a first edition of "Twelve Dancing Princesses" to digitize. The vivid colors and sharp details in this vintage book do justice to Nielsen's genius better than the fuzzy, faded reproductions in later collections do.

Nielsen's pen and ink drawings are just as beautiful as the color illustrations. If you would like to see all the images from this book, stop by the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive anytime during office hours.












For more beautiful illustrations by Kay Nielsen, see Twelve Dancing Princesses and East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

See also, Arthur Rackham's Grimms Fairy Tales, Edmund Dulac's Edgar Allen Poe, Dulac's Tanglewood Tales, Gustaf Tenggren's Wonderbook, Monks By Eduard von Grutzner, N. C. Wyeth's Legends of Charlemagne, Maxfield Parrish's Arabian Nights, Frank Reynolds Paints Pickwick, and John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll

Thank you
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

5.13.08
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