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
.

Stumble It!

Illustration: Einar Norelius and John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll (1944/49)

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 scanned more illustrations from the Swedish Christmas annual, Bland Tomtar Och Troll. (For links to posts with more from this series, see the end of this article.) The Bauer illustrations are reprinted from the 1919 and 1909 editions in the series. The Norelius images show how his style evolved over the years. By 1949, he had perfected a direct, dreamlike style (some of the images look similar to Magritte) which perfectly suits the timelessness of the fairy tale subjects. Here are more examples of the genius ofJohn Bauer and Einar Norelius- the 1944 and 1949 editions of Bland Tomtar Och Troll...

JOHN BAUER








EINAR NORELIUS












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

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Illustration: John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll

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.


Like many of the artists we feature here on this blog, John Bauer is a name that not many people know. His career was relatively short, but his influence was far reaching.

Born in 1882 in Sweden, Bauer studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. In 1904, he illustrated his first book, Lappland, but in 1907 he began work on a series of Christmas annuals that would make him famous. Bland Tomtar Och Troll (Among Trolls and Elves) is a Swedish tradition, beginning in 1907 and continuing to this very day. I'm afraid I don't speak Swedish, so I can't speak for the folk tales Bauer is illustrating, but the illustrations are stunning.

Bauer had a way with trolls... they are grotesque, yet appealing. The simple, yet elegant compositions conveyed the essence of the image clearly with a sense of humor that both children and adults could understand. His style influenced generations of artists from Gustaf Tenggren (who took over the Bland Tomtar Och Troll series after Bauer's death in a shipwreck in 1918), Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen to Brian Froud and Jim Henson (The Dark Crystal). This particular edition of Bland Tomtar Och Troll is from 1915, but the images are timeless.













MORE BY JOHN BAUER







Very little information on Bauer exists outside of his native country of Sweden. There is a museum dedicated to his work in the city where he was born. If you have any information on this great artist, please let us know about it in the comments below.

See also.. Einar Norelius' Bland Tomtar Och Troll 1929, Einar Norelius' Bland Tomtar Och Troll (1934)

To see Bauer's influence on contemporary illustrators, see... Gustaf Tenggren's Grimm's Fairy Tales, Arthur Rackham's Grimm's Fairy Tales, and Kay Nielsen's East of the Sun and West of the Moon and Hansel & Gretel.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

10.20.08
.

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