A retrospective of the world of book illustrations

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Edmund Dulac


"The Snow Queen" from Stories of Hans Andersen, 1911

Edmund Dulac was greatly admired for his depictions of ethereal and romantic fairy tales. He had a talent for envisioning scenes in shimmering, jewel toned splendor.

Dulac was born in Toulouse, France, in 1882. He cultivated a passion for art as a boy, and grew to admire the works of William Morris, Walter Crane and Aubrey Beardsley. Dulac dedicated himself to becoming an illustrator after shrugging off two years of law school. He entered the profession just as the publishing industry underwent great technological advancements, introducing new methods of inexpensive colour reproductions. Dulac’s first illustrations appeared in a publication of Jane Eyre in 1905. His best known work appears in Stories from the Arabian Nights (1907), the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1909), The Sleeping Beauty and Other Tales (1910), Stories from Hans Andersen (1911), Princess Badoura (1913), Sinbad the Sailor and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights (1914), the Dreamer of Dreams (1915) and Edmund Dulac’s Fairy Book (1916). Dulac actively illustrated until 1918. He died in 1953.

It is difficult to envision his work without the necessary advances in
colour reproductions.



"The Real Princess" from Stories of Hans Andersen, 1911



"The Garden of Paradise" from Stories of Hans Andersen, 1911



From the Dreamer of Dreams, 1915



1916

Menges, Jeff A., ed. Dulac’s Fairy Tale Illustrations. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2004. Print.

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