A Royal Treatment for the Bard

Feeling a bit like an elf must feel on December 26th—the task of setting out a bigger list of cover designs for our Fall 2010 catalog is behind us. (If you don't know, I'm part of a team that designs over 500 new covers a year for Dover) In what I believe is our biggest list ever, there are at least six books that I will discuss here on VIEW in the coming weeks. Many won't see publication for a few months, but they are all in the works. A few of these are new titles that will be appearing in our Calla line. Most Calla titles are near facsimiles to early or first editions that appeared a century ago.

Calla is a line that Dover started a little over a year ago, the brainchild of Dover's current president. The line is near to my heart, for obvious reasons. It's aim is to produce beautifully crafted books, like so much of the material that I go through to put monographs together. Hardcovers, foil stamping, endpapers; the features that make books special— and great stories with even better illustrations. Their pricing is reasonable, and they are produced entirely within the US.

First one I want to look at is Shakespeare's drama, Hamlet. A great and classic story, but widely available. What makes this edition special?— The amazing line illustrations of John Austen. Austen had entered illustration as a career later than most—his first illustrations not being published until he was 35—but he found an interesting track working in a similar style to one of his artistic idols, Aubrey Beardsley. The twist, is that this group of images is something of a bridge between Beardsley's complex design-heavy style, and the influence of Art Deco on illustration in 1922. It was indeed a turning point for Austen, who began to simplify further after this project, never returning to the level of involvement that some of these images contain. It's a beautiful package from cover to cover. I'll get back to you shortly with a release date.

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I'm attending BEA (BookExpo America) for the first time this year. I'll be around the Dover booth, but out prowling the floor too, on May 27th.

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THIS JUST IN
The book has been announced for a September 16th release, at $25.00

...and, we're back

Wow. It has been an incredibly long time since my last post, and in truth, I'm still pulling together this week's info. The good news, is that there is news. We are just about at a point where I can announce some of the new titles from the upcoming season of releases at Dover, and there are a few titles that will be of interest to fans of vintage illustration. There is almost always a title on every biannual list that deserves mention, but this season is especially strong for friends of this area of art. I'm taking the unusual route of making a post without some accompanying images to just say- hang in there, I'll be right with you— and to acknowledge a difficult loss for illustration fans.

News came to me this evening of the passing of Frank Frazetta. If there was an artist alive who was the bridge between the Golden Age of illustration, and today's fantastic imagery, it was Frazetta. The splash his work made was so big, it was felt at every edge of the pond. His definitive images of Robert Howard characters will forever bear his moody colors, and his deep, dark shadows. His imagery was sword-and-sorcery. Every 40 or 50-something year old fantasy illustrator working today owes something to Frank Frazetta, for the influence he had early on, and continues to have today. He will be remembered as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, maybe not tomorrow, but time will bear this out. Thanks for everything, Mr. Frazetta.

Be back in a day or three with this week's regular post. —Jeff

March is Pyle's Month

Howard Pyle's birthday was on March 5th. He would have been 157 this year. While I had a clear idea to post a few things in his honor, I've happily been busy, with a couple of illustration jobs, work on the Walter Crane book, and a convention.

So let me get back to that, before we lose March-
Recently, I had hopes of expanding the book I put out on Howard Pyle back in 2006. When I first put that together, the primary goal was to make some of Pyle's work available to a market that had very little access to his imagery. It was a long, hard sell, and I needed help to convince Dover it was worth it. The book recently went into a second printing, and before it did I had hopes of adding more material to the original edition—but it didn't work out. The result is, I had gathered materials, that will very likely never be reprinted in their original format. So until the next print run, here are a few rarely seen pieces from smaller, less-likely to be noticed, Howard Pyle works.

First up were a few small books. The first is from 1892— Called Dorothy Q Together with A Ballad of the Boston Tea Party and Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill. (They just don't write titles like that anymore...) These historical pieces were written by Oliver Wendall Holmes, (sr.) father of a very important justice of the supreme court in the first half of the 20th century. This charming little volume has scores of Pyle ink pieces, and a few wash pieces also. The second title is one of Pyle's own writing—The Price of Blood appeared in 1899. It has the look of a story originally published as magazine chapters, but I can't be sure at this time—I'll check on it—It has a three-color frontispiece, red, black, and yellow. The other small pieces (chapter-heads) are 2 color, red and black. Pyle was about to come into his heyday at this time, teaching, and soon to begin to work with a greatly improved method of color printing, which would finally allow him to reproduce paintings accurately. These two books—while nice examples of work at the time—are not likely to be appreciated by today's audiences, and will likely remain silent artifacts of the past century.

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Working on this, and with a pointer from friend Scott Kraft, I found the blog of Ian Schoenherr. A fine illustrator in his own right, Schoenherr keeps up the family ways, and turns out an AMAZING blog on our buddy Howard Pyle. If Pyle's methods, details, and effects interest you, head on over and check out Ian's Howard Pyle blog. And many thanks to Ian for helping me straighten out some facts on this post!

Thulstrup's Horses

What I have for you today is some real vintage imagery. There are several subjects in Golden Age material that get repeated thematically. I've made you aware that the sea is a theme I am especially fond of—another theme that surfaces in art of this age, not surprisingly, is horses. When you think of early horse painters, Frederick Remington is likely the first in mind, perhaps followed by Charles Russell. (I actually prefer Russell) But here is a name I stumble across frequently while covering the late 19th century, and his horses were amazing.

Thure de Thulstrup (1848-1930) was born into the higher end of Swedish society. His father, a high-ranking military official, gave him a solid education, though military-based. Thulstrup's serious interest in art (he also served in the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870's) did not happen until later on—his earliest illustrative employment was with the New York Daily Graphic in 1876. A part of the Harper staff during the 1880's, he would have been there when Howard Pyle was getting much of his early work for Harper's. What remained with Thulstrup from his earlier life was an understanding of military subjects—what was important to a soldier, what details were necessary—and the guy could draw cavalry like few others at the time. He did apply this same technical understanding to the occasional maritime piece, but military, and battle scenes—especially containing horses, remained his speciality.