William M. Timlin's One Hit Wonder

And the wonder that it is...

Lot's to discuss here. As many of you know, I have long-standing involvement (on a few levels) with Dover Publications. In the last few years Dover has re-examined the idea of the reprint—out of that, the imprint Calla was born, to bring a selection of the beautiful material we found, crafted so well a century ago, and deliver it in as near a facsimile fashion as we could produce. The line is doing fairly well; there is still appreciation for these volumes out there. With the coming holiday season, Calla has selected 9 new volumes to reprint, seven Golden Age classics, and two modern classics. I'll discuss these seven vintage volumes in the coming weeks, and today I'll start with the book I've been waiting more than two years to talk about, William M. Timlin's (1892-1943) The Ship that Sailed to Mars.

Originally published in 1923, the book saw only 2000 copies printed in England, 250 of those were distributed in the US. it contained 48 color plates, and handwritten text of a fantastic tale, by a British-born South African architect who never produced another comparable book. The Ship that Sailed to Mars has some gorgeous plates. My first encounter with the images was as a young teen, when I found some on notecards. Years later, I found a reprint of the rare book, and scooped it up knowing it was unlikely I'd ever get my hands on a 1923 edition. — even that 1993 reprint now fetches over $100 a copy.

After Dover obtained an original edition to work from, Calla has finally committed to reprinting this stellar work in it's original format. Timlin showed the potential to rival the best illustrators of the period, but this remained his lone statement. It is a supurb collection of images, and Timlin's calligraphy add to the books uniqueness. Until now, it has been nearly unattainable.

Amazon's listing here.

Dying to see the rest of it- catch a peek here-


What? The other 2011 Calla selections? OK, here they are- to be profiled in the coming weeks-
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Illustration by William Heath Robinson
Alice in Wonderland, with 92 color images by Harry Rountree
Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranetes, with illustration by Jessie King
Edmund Dulac's Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales
Arthur Rackham's Engish Fairy Tales
Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp in Rhyme by Arthur Ransome, Illustrations by Thomas Mackenzie

The two modern Classics are-
Jan Pienkowski's The Thousand Nights and One Night-, the Arabian Nights done in a traditional style silhouette, with brilliant color backgrounds-
and James Gurney's amazing Dinotopia. How great to have this book back in print. All exciting stuff, happy to bring you the news. All of these, are scheduled to be released in September 2011. Stay tuned for the profiles, and updates.

W. J. Aylward, Old salt from Wisconsin....

It seemed like a fair moment to share with you some of the work of one of my favorite marine painters, and by the end of the post, it'll be clear as to why.

In previous VIEW postings, we've already looked at Gordon Grant, and Anton Otto Fischer, both excellent marine painters. There was plenty of work depicting shipping during the Golden Age, it is a subject that has it's own tricks, and for those that "knew the ropes," there was plenty of work to be had. The next in the seafarer's group is W. J. Aylward. (1875-1956). Aylward was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The son of a ship-builder and lake captain, (for those who didn't do well in geography, Milwaukee sits on the southwest edge of Lake Michigan, and is actually a port city in middle America...) Aylward's fondness for marine subjects stayed with him his entire career.

Aylward was a Brandywine Alumni, and was fortunate enough to receive one of Howard Pyle's career-making "field trips". Pyle had helped arrange for Frank Schoonover to get to the Canadian wild, and for N. C. Wyeth to travel out West. He helped Aylward get assigned (through President Roosevelt, no less) to write about and illustrate an incredible sea journey, with the floating dry-dock "Dewey". The culmination of this project came to be printed in the May 1907 issue of Scribner's Magazine, with 20 pieces of work, four of them full page.

Aylward did lots of magazine work, for the likes of Youth's Companion, Scribner's, and Harper's Magazines, among others. Books too, where the story was right—In the early part of his career, 1904— he caught a big break in getting an assignment to do Jack London's Sea Wolf. 20 years later was the other end of that run, with the 1925 edition of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
In 1950, while still teaching, he published a small book through Pitman Publishing—Ships and How to Draw Them, though somewhat light in the way of instruction, it has some nice grayscale work, and if you're interested in the material, could be worth tracking down. (see the "Looking Forward" illustration, above)

There's a nice start at looking up Aywlard on Paul Giambarba's great site, 100 Years of Illustration and Design

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In Dover News- Friday I got my hands on an advance copy of A Dulac Treasury. It'll be trickling out soon, and I'll let you know as soon as it is attainable. Shakespeare Illustrated is currently at press, and Great Illustrations by N. C. Wyeth, whew, that's almost wrapped up. Next post, I should finally be able to give you some news about the new season of Calla Editions.

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And in a week of nautical art— it's worth a mention that my own sea-faring work is currently being shown at Krab Jab Studios, in Seattle, if you're out in that direction.

A Master Fantasist— Sidney Sime

Many moons ago, I picked up a book at The Strand bookstore in NYC, on A British illustrator named Sidney Sime (1867-1941). The work in the book ( Sidney Sime: Master of the Mysterious, Thames and Hudson, 1980) is almost exclusively grayscale—and while he did do some color work, the majority of the work he presented during his active illustration years—was reproduced as halftone work. Sime worked early in his career for numerous publications, including The Paul Mall Magazine, Eureka, and The Idler (which Sime later owned and edited) . He had a penchant for strange, dream-like scenes, and a bit of surrealism, occasionally touched with a light dash of humor. In 1904, he made the aquaintence of Lord Dunsany. Dunsany was a writer— short stories and plays, mostly—whose writing was well matched with the imaginary places that Sime depicted. The pair began a working relationship that lasted through 6 volumes of illustrated tales, from 1905 to about 1916, with an few additional frontispieces for another decade. The work Sime did with Dunsany is the bulk of what we can see of his today, and a small amount of it survives in reprints.

The pairing complimented each other so well, that not only did Sime illustrate for Dunsany, but in 1912, Dunsany wrote a book of stories about existing Sime works. (The Book of Wonder) Sime's strange characters and fantastic settings influenced many artists after him, and his sense of mystery continues to entertain us today.

These images are a few of the ones I did not find so readily elsewhere. Though very little of Sime's color work is in print, I did find one piece in my files, from an Illustration House show, 20 years ago. There are many sites scattered around that feature a fair amount of Sime's work, one of the most teasing being that of his former home and museum/gallery in Worplesdon, England. Most of Sime's work was left to the town trustees, to establish a gallery. While they have done so, the site provides only a glimpse at very small images which we can't see anywhere else. Hopefully in time, more of that may emerge.

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The third image is an enlarged detail from the second-

Kay Nielsen, Denmark's star of the Golden Age.

There's a lot going on in the studio this month. That's a good thing—but it does tend to impact the frequency of blog reports.

Looking over the list, as I work on the 50th VIEW post, It says to me that there are a few of the characters in our story that are still in need of credit. While I revel in uncovering the ones that are overlooked and/or buried, there are a few illustrators that we haven't discussed, or looked at, that are familiar to many of us—but maybe not to all. To continue to look past them would border on disrespect. Can't have that.
So let me bring one to the front, who has been influencing me since I was a wee lad, though I had no clue who he was, until much more recently.
Kay Nielsen (1886-1957) was Danish by birth, though he came to America in 1936. Nielsen did work on a few fairy tale volumes, including Andersen's Tales and The Brother's Grimm. His work had a very distinct style—perhaps with some traces of influence from British line artist Aubrey Beardsley. Some others whose work fits this mold might be Harry Clarke, and the work of John Austen in his edition of Hamlet.

Nielsen's work has some great theatrical quality as well—something that did not go unrecognized—even his early illustration work has some of the feeling of a set, with lot's of flat areas of color, and decorative elements. If Nielsen had a masterpiece in illustration it was his edition of East of the Sun, West of the Moon.(1914) More literature from his native Scandanavia, this collection of myths provides some great imagery for Nielsen's sense of environment. There are many illustrated editions, Nielsen's may be the definitive one. Here are some of the best from East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

Jim Vadeboncouer's Nielsen Bio-
Calla facsimile edition- here
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ROAD TRIP
Back in this century- If you're in the states, up in that NE corner near Mass., not (too) far from me, there is a very promising lecture opportunity going on at the The Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies at Norman Rockwell Museum this coming Sunday- From the museum's info--Dr. Jennifer A. Greenhill, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois. Dr. Greenhill’s lecture is entitled “Imperiled Illustrators: J. C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, and the War at ‘The Saturday Evening Post.’” This lecture is based on an article Dr. Greenhill is currently writing about the moment when Leyendecker leaves “The Post” and Rockwell takes over as the magazine's star illustrator. For more info on the event- check it out here. Thanks to the museum for allowing me to pass that on to you.