There are still treasures to find

While I'm still tied up in a crazy amount of work, I've had to find a way to mention some of the things that have happened this past few weeks—and—share an amazing Golden Age find with you.

In the last week I spent four days at Illuxcon, in Altoona, PA. If you are unfamiliar with the name, it is a convention focused on art—particularly—that of the genre coming to be known as Imaginative Realism. (A term made relevant by the esteemed artist and author James Gurney) It is traditional work that is featured here; while digital imagery maintains a presence in lectures and discussion, original paintings are the stars of this show.

I mention the show here because almost no other audience than the people working in this field has a greater appreciation of the art I discuss on VIEW. There is a lot of cross-referencing and respect for Golden Age material. The mission of Illuxcon, it's benefit and support to those working in the field, is unsurpassed. If you are a fan of this material on VIEW, you would undoubtedly appreciate and enjoy what they are doing at Illuxcon as well. You can check them out at http://www.illuxcon.com/

Next years show is being moved to the Allentown Art Museum during the month of September. Sign up To their facebook page here.

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A while back, I introduced you to the French artist Maurice Boutet de Monvel, and his book The Story of Joan of Arc. Now I have news of another French illustrator and a magnificent book published in 1910…    A good friend recently emailed me that she had stumbled on a book at a library fundraiser that she thought I would really like. I kept my expectations low, as I'm often directed towards books I’m already aware of, but this turned out to be the kind of thing I’m hungry for. Thanks, Mary.

Maurice Lalau (1881-1961) appears to be well-regarded in France, but it is not a name I have come across much before. (Dover does print an edition of East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon that contains a few of his illustrations, but they do not compare in quality to these)

The book that seems to be one of the highlights of his career is this Heinemann (who was also publishing Rackham at the time) volume titled The Romance of Tristan and Iseult. It contains 20 color plates, and some beautifully drawn illustrative cap letters.  Text by Joseph Bédier. The color work has some brilliant range for the period, the draftsmanship—especially the architecture—is remarkable, and the emotion behind these illustrations might bring more comparisons to J. W. Waterhouse than other book illustrators of the period. While The Romance of Tristan and Iseult appears to be quite scarce, I’m not the first to blog about it, and if you thirst for more of these images, the whole group has been posted here. (where you can also find some comments about the color in my Dover books…I think I may need to address that one week…)

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Still looking for three more followers until the book giveaway. Sign on if you haven’t, and comment or message me that you are interested in free art books…

Summertime is Time to Travel. The Wonders We Will See!

Being up to my neck in large scale projects this week—and for quite a few more to come— it's been easy to let days slide away, but I'm determined to attempt to maintain some regular connections.

Before any more time goes by, I have to alert VIEW's readers to two amazing shows currently on display in the Northeast corner of the US. The first is from some folks I'm proud to call friends, Pat and Jeannie Wilshire of Illuxcon fame have guest curated an exhibit now on display at the Allentown Art Museum in PA.

At the Edge is a show unlike any other I've ever known to have been assembled. It contains the best in "fantastic" art, (in the sense of "fantastical") from nearly 150 years ago up to the best Imaginative Realist painters going today. The list is mind-blowing. While the current crop of top illustrators makes an annual appearance at Illuxcon and is well represented in this show, it is the historical (i.e. "vintage")  stuff that this blog focuses on— and WOW, they've pulled some masterworks out from private collections (The Kelly Collection, and The Korshak Collection, and others). This is an extraordinary opportunity to see some outstanding pieces, from many of the artists that we discuss here with some regularity. Shown at the right, Dean Cornwell, Wladyslaw Benda, Edmund Dulac, J. C. Leyendecker and Franklin Booth... All in one place. Thanks to the Wilshires for permission to repost those images here on VIEW.

The Allentown show runs until September 9th, and appears to be continually hosting lectures by the biggest and the best. The Wilshires themselves will be there this Sunday, to present  a lecture on the imagery of the fantastic—Imagining Reality with Pat and Jeannie Wilshire (Roger Dean will be there a week from now...)  They are doing so much to help fantastic imagery get the respect it deserves. Worth a vacation day, for sure.

AND IF THAT'S NOT ENOUGH

The Howard Pyle Centennial exhibit is showing again, now located at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge Mass.

If you weren't able to make it when it was at the Delaware Art Museum, It will be in Mass. until October 28th. I posted some comments on the show when I first saw it, but I am planning on seeing it at the Rockwell also.

Time to hit the road.

W.H. Robinson's Color Bulls-Eye

What do I mean by that... you ask? I mean, he hit dead center on this one with his color work.

A few months ago while profiling the Calla Fall 11 releases (there's still one Golden Age reprint left to discuss) I posted a selection of William Heath Robinson's (British, 1872-1944) line work from Midsummer Night's Dream. WHR's line in that volume is beautifully clean and balanced, while the characters are intricate and full of personality. It's gorgeous ink work—but I chose not to review the color plates in that volume. I can't say the color work (in MSND) has the same impact on me as the ink work; the color is fine, but the ink work is excellent.

In other internet wanderings, I come across plates for a volume that W. H. Robinson produced in 1909. A Song of the English, by Rudyard Kipling. In this volume, the line work, while plentiful, is rather ordinary, but the color work here absolutely sings. I did some homework, and found that only the earliest copies contained all 30 of the color images... and they fetch quite a price. but good things come to those who wait, and after some time, I came across a nice copy which I can share with you today. Each of these five images is shown with the surrounding piece of line-work frame, printed in a soft color on the text stock, which frames the tipped-in full-color illustration. All of the plates for the volume are visible here, if you have a yearning to see the whole set.

or the whole volume, poem, line work, and all, here

The poem is about the grand Empire of Britain, which was quite extraordinary when Kipling wrote it in 1896. (The poem was originally published as part of the The Seven Seas) The dated qualities of the poem, and the attitudes that may not be universally favorable, may detract a bit from the books value in today's market, but the illustrations are some of W. H. Robinson's best. Subtlety, symbolism, solid figures, beautiful color.
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In more current times, if any of you folks are heading off to Illuxcon, in Altoona, PA in a few weeks, (for the Illustration conference that happens there annually) keep an eye out for me—I'll have some of my books along with my own work at the Showcase event on Friday night.

Often overlooked Warwick Goble

In a recent mail to someone I 'd mentioned British illustrator Warwick Goble. (1862-1943) Then I went to link to a VIEW post as to better explain my point, and found that I too, had somewhat overlooked Warwick Goble. Time to correct that, as he is certainly worth a look at.

Goble had a solid career in illustration, and was well entrenched in magazine work when the gift-book boom hit Britain after 1905. Goble was often in the shadow of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, but he rose to their level on more than one occasion. After roughly 15 years in magazine and paper work, Goble got a break from Macmillan, who in 1909 signed him on to be their gift-book illustrator, granting him steady—if war interrupted—work for the next decade. Like Dulac, tales of the exotic east held a special interest, and would reoccur as his subject of choice repeatedly. Like those two aforementioned giants, Goble worked primarily with a watercolor treatment over line work.

Goble also made a few serious benchmarks in fantasy/sci-fi work, with the very first illustrations for H. G. Well's War of the Worlds, (Ink-wash pieces in Pearson's magazine, April-December 1897) and also he was the first illustrator to tackle the words of that young (at the time) Oxford professor, J. R. R. Tolkien. Not bad credits for the resumé, eh? Shown here- images from The Fairy Book, 1913, Folktales of Bengal, 1912, The Tolkien image from The Book of Fairy Poetry, 1920, and lastly a look at Goble's vision of Wells's tripods...

Greetings to everyone I got to see at Illuxcon. My presentation on The Influence of Golden Age Illustration of Fantasy Art Today was well attended and received. If it rears it's head in a video format of some kind, I'll be sure to let you know. The show was a much needed shot in the arm, and I'm already looking forward to next year. Apologies for the delay in the posting—the past month has been frantic with the show, and many, many family events....

Another peek at Norman Price

It's been a while since the last post. Things are busy, but that's not without some news to report. I haven't been writing here, because I've been busy working on three books... I'm wrapping up the last text bits for Shakespeare Illustrated, finalizing the plate selection for An Edmund Dulac Treasury, and beginning to hunt new material for one of my two titles on the Fall 2011 list, which I'll be able to give some details on soon. There is also a big new painting on the board, and Illuxcon is right around the corner.
After the last post, I felt as if the mention of Norman Price (1877-1951) was a bit of a tease. The other four on that list have had a fair amount of recognition, if not here, than likely on some of the sites on my "Education" list, (above, left). Info on Price is a bit harder to come by. At the same time— I have a nice selection of plates from him that will appear in the aforementioned Shakespeare Illustrated. The sections in the book are being assembled by play. This is pretty unusual, but we felt it would provide better reference for Drama usage if the art was collected this way. We picked the 12 plays we were able to find the best art for—which are generally the best known and most imaginative—and it's shaped up nicely. However— it does mean that there are some really beautiful plates, from less illustrated works, that have no place in the book. So I thought I'd show you some of Norman Price's pieces that didn't make the selection, as an appetizer.
As I mentioned last week, Price was not a student of Pyle's, but he did follow a very similar path. He had tremendous respect for historical details, had an affinity for pirates, and I believe you can say here, that his palette is also in the same neighborhood as Pyle's. This Shakespeare work is from a 1905(?) edition of Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb, Published by T. C. and E. C. Jack, London.

Before the books and their illustrators, there were these folks-

In the late Victorian age, when printing technology had yet to catch up with the wild imaginations of an incredible group of creatives, there was a lot of great narrative painting going on. Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolists, some being influenced by impressionists, some sticking with great painting traditions. Realist painters colliding with mythical subjects. Throw in some Art Nouveau influence, and we have some very interesting imagery.

Some of them, like Walter Crane (1845-1915) and Frederick Sandys (1829-1904), would manage to defy convention, and flourish in both the gallery world and in the commercial goings-on in early illustrated books. Most professors will tell you this isn't a possibility today. Regardless of opinion, they pulled it off pretty well then.

Over a year ago I began the selection process for the images that would result in this book, and though it went through a great deal of transformation since then, it is a terrific group of images that seldom get a moment to shine in most art collections.

It's not all (strictly) Victorian, but what's not is rooted in what started there. It's not all fantasy, there is some Mythology and some romantic history as well. All of it is very influential material that would shape the imagery produced in the Golden Age of illustration.

Top to bottom-
Edmund Blair Leighton, The Accolade, 1901

Evelyn De Morgan, Earthbound, 1897

John William Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891—maybe my favorite depiction of this story, the ship and the treatment of the Harpies are fantastic.

George Frederic Watts, The Angel of Death, c. 1870s. Watts is a dreamer's painter, and in my book should get a lot more attention.
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Also- Coming up next month is a convention in Altoona, PA, by the name of Illuxcon. This show is for fantasy illustrators and fans of that material. It's a professional level show, and I imagine a few of the folks who look over this site might be there. If you're going, let me know, I'll see you there!