Four and Twenty: illustration art

Showing posts with label illustration art. Show all posts

Friday, August 23, 2013

The Skinny: Harry Clarke

In Cork, Ireland, there is an art museum called the Crawford Art Gallery. I went for an exhibit called "Analysing Cubism" (which wasn't great), but I ended up falling in love with an exhibit called "A Revel in Blue." I'm a sucker for blue.

It is a small museum, but there are several floors. I gave up on the cubism exhibit pretty quickly, so I left my group behind and went to wander the rest of the museum on my own. There are portraits, and landscapes, and small displays of silverwork. I climbed the stairs, braving the uneven air conditioning in a very old building, and explored the rest of the rooms on my own. I enjoyed it, but didn't really have a gasp-worthy moment, so after an hour or so, I had decided to part ways with the museum. But, on the top floor, on my way back to the staircase, I saw one more room. It looked dark, and I thought it might be nothing, but I decided that since I was up there, I might as well go peek. Here was my gasp-worthy moment (and I almost missed it!).

At Length Burst in the Argent Revelry, Harry Clarke

There were no overhead lights, just a beautiful blue glow. The blue came from a series of illustrations, all studies for stained glass panels by Harry Clarke to illustrate scenes from a John Keats poem called The Eve of St. Agnes. It was breathtaking, and I was the only one in this world. There were also a few stained glass pieces, and some other awesome illustrations that Clarke did for Edgar Allen Poe stories.

Madeline--St. Agnes' Charmed Maid, Harry Clarke

The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans, Harry Clarke

Stained glass panel from The Eve of St. Agnes

I just had to know more about him. The gift shop told me a little, most notably that Harry Clarke also illustrated an edition of Hans Christian Andersen stories. I decided to dig a little more online. (I confess that I am simultaneously excited, embarrassed, and outraged that, as a collector of illustrated fairy tales, I have never seen this Andersen edition, nor had I heard of Harry Clarke. I had to fix this. And P.S., Christmas list, people! I need this book!)

Thumbelina, Harry Clarke

The Tinderbox, Harry Clarke

Harry Clarke is Ireland's most famous stained glass artist. Born in 1889, he started as an apprentice in his father's studio before studying stained glass at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. As a first year student, one of Clarke's stained glass panels won a gold medal at an art competition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He married Margaret Crilly, a fellow student at the college, and set himself up doing commission stained glass pieces and book illustrations (beginning with the Andersen tales in 1916).

Aquarius, Harry Clarke

After his father's death, Harry took over the studio and spent several productive years designing commission pieces for various churches in Ireland, England, Australia, and America. Unfortunately, he contracted tuberculosis. After traveling to Switzerland to recover his health, Harry Clarke died in 1931 at the age of 41.

Marie Rouget, Harry Clarke

He was known for his quality, craftsmanship, and fine detail. He specialized in merging the beautiful and the grotesque, like in his illustrations for Faust, The Fall of the House of Usher and other Poe stories.

Illustration from Faust, Harry Clarke

The Fall of the House of Usher, Harry Clarke

The Tell-Tale Heart, Harry Clarke

*Information obtained from www.harryclarke.net and www.crawfordartgallery.ie

Friday, April 12, 2013

The Skinny -- Rie Cramer

Rie Cramer

Marie Cramer, better known as Rie, was an illustrator of her times. Her images perfectly capture the essence of the 1920s and 30s, from her color choices to her linework and detail to her subject matter and point of view. Her work features flowing Art Nouveau figures, with bright, saturated color, and lots of personality. We Blackbird girls love illustrators, and her work makes us so, so happy.

The youngest in a family of four girls, Rie Cramer was born and raised in the Dutch East Indies, more specifically in Java, Indonesia, in 1887. Her father, Henry Cramer, was often absent, as he was with the "packet service", traveling on ships with cargo. Her mother, Elisabeth Frederika Schenck, took Rie and her sisters back to The Netherlands when she was 9 years old, and she attended an art academy in The Hague, the third largest city in the country, from 1905 to 1907.

At 17, she left a folder of her work -- drawings and rhymes -- with a publisher, W. de Haan, in Utrecht. They loved it, and she got a contract in 1906 to do the book, Of Girls and Boys. She did a sequel a year later.

"In contrast to the then usual moralistic and educational children's books were these playful books about domestic life and the world of the child. The illustrations were not only informative, but appealed to the imagination and made the book much more accessible to children than the usual children's literature."*

Rie went on to illustrate books for other Dutch authors, like Nienke Hichtum and Anna Sutorius, as well as the classics, like Grimm's Fairy Tales and Alice in Wonderland. She was heavily influenced by the art of other illustrators from around the world, like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. She worked with a dark black outline, and then filled in with watercolors.

Rie was married two times, both ending in divorce, and she had a passionate, life-changing affair with married art critic Albert Plasschaert that ended in 1919. She had no children. But she lived for her art, going on to make dolls, ceramics, and even write plays and novels under a pseudonym. She also wrote for a children's magazine, Sunshine, in the 1920s and 30s.

World War II was especially difficult for Rie. In 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. Two of Rie's pre-war novels, She,We, and You and The Land of Promise were banned for their anti-Nazi message. She worked against the Nazis, hiding refugees and writing poetry, called Verses of Resistance. Through it all, though, she continued to illustrate children's books. After the war, her fame spread to Britain and beyond, and she wrote a series of children's radio shows, of which 42 episodes aired in 1954 and 1955.

The Little Mermaid

Rie's later years were spent in Mallorca, living with friends. According to her, it was the best time of her life. She wrote several books about Mallorca, and her love for cats. She was crazy about her cats, and even posed with one of her cats for her passport photo. In 1971, she moved back to the Netherlands. Rie died at the age of 89 in 1977.

Critics have said that Rie neglected part of society with her art, focusing too much on the whimsy and beauty, and not enough on the realness of the world during the time she worked. However, her lighthearted, beautiful art speaks more to me because the fantasy she put into every illustration. Rie captured the most important element of childhood in her work -- imagination and fun.

*http://www.fairyworx.net/Rie_Cramer.html

Friday, March 22, 2013

The Skinny: Walter Beach Humphrey

Walter Beach Humphrey was an American artist of the early 20th century who specialized in magazine and book illustrations. He did cover art for Liberty, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Elks, and other major (and not so major) magazines of the 1920s and beyond. He was best known for Colonial and American Indian images, starting from his Dartmouth days, but many of his most beautiful illustrations featured women. He showed a bit of Art Nouveau influence in his earlier female forms, especially with the long hair and flowing garments (which still managed to be skimpy), but his work in the 1920s epitomized the new ideal for women--slender figures, new necklines and hemlines, and shorter hairstyles made them appealing from a fashion standpoint. Faces in profile gave them mystery. Their elegant necks gave them timeless beauty. These ladies are classy, and if they have a bit of attitude, it's almost a here-and-you-missed-it moment.There isn't much information available about Humphrey, because he lived a pretty calm life, but I thought he could ring in Spring for us....