This is the catalogue of our BIGGEST Illustrators exhibition yet. The 330-page catalogue with over 550 full colour and black & white images, is available from the gallery or online at £20 + p&p. Chris Beetles Gallery welcomes you to The Illustrators, the largest and most popular annual event worldwide for cartoon and illustration collectors. This extravaganza presents 800 original works for sale by over 85 artists from across three centuries, with prices ranging from £250 to £250,000. The exhibition opens on the 15 of November 2014, and closes on the 3 of January 2015.
This is an antique, bevel-matted, children’s engraving, illustrated by Edith Farmiloe, and published in London in 1899. The prints in this series are blank on the reverse, printed on a semi-hard paper, and matted in an off-white acid free matte. These are very sweet prints and cover all the children in all the nations across the world as they were known and thought of pre-1900. Each print is accompanied by an often enlightening verse by E.V. Lucas. TITLE: SPAIN -- A WAYSIDE LESSON PUBLICATION DATE: 1899 ARTIST: EDITH FARMILOE CONDITION: EXCELLENT / VERY FINE -- The prints in this series are clear, clean, bright and colorful (mostly pastel shades). No foxing, creasing or folds. A really fine image. Excellent definition. Nice clean, sharp lines. This print is about 115 years old and guaranteed to be original. It’s an authentic old print from the aforementioned publication, and NOT A REPRODUCTION. The print is about 7 3/4" x 11" (including the border around the print). Matted the print measures 11" x 14". This is a standard size matte that will fit into a standard size frame—no costly custom frames required. ALL OF OUR MATTED PRINTS ARE WRAPPED IN A CLEAR CELLOPHANE ENVELOPE THAT PROTECTS THE PRINT DURING SHIPPING AND IS PERFECT FOR GIFT GIVING. About The Mats All of our prints are professionally matted in a very high quality, and simple off-white/ivory matting with a small bevel. The backing, WHICH IS NOT ATTACHED TO THE PRINT, also meets the same high quality standard. We take pride in what we sell—look at our feedback. All mats are acid-free and the small piece of tape used to attach the print to the top of the mat is artists tape. This print is truly ready to be framed and preserved. Some Comments about Our Mats: Always a wonderful transaction. Will buy again. Awesome Prints & Mats!!!!! Incredible Print. Fab pkg. Rapid ship. Gorgeous Mat. Great communication. A+ Beautiful Print. Awesome Mat! Fab pkg. Rapid ship. Bought 4 MORE! A++++ As always, a very fine print & mat, well-packed & promptly shipped: A+ This print is better than I imagined, the mat is fabulous, everything is perfect THANK YOU! JUST AS DESCRIBED. GREAT MATTING! A+A+A+ Great vendor. Nicely packaged and matted. Highly recommend this vendor. Great matted print, excellent transaction in every way, A+++ - thank you! Thanks.... great item and nicely matted and shipped!!! Beautiful print and matte, great shape, great packaging, quick service. Very fast shipping, nicely matted, and a nice print. Beautifully matted, just as described. A+ seller! Great print artfully matted. Prompt service. Thanks. Great service-prompt delivery-beautifully matted-perfection! Will buy from again General Information If you have a question, don't hesitate to contact us. We are happy to answer questions and can usually do so within 24 hours. Return policy: Please be assured that we strive to provide our customers and potential customers with accurate descriptions and we always do our best to mention any condition issues worth noting. If you are ever dissatisfied with a purchase from us, please contact us immediately. We stand behind what we sell and will do our best to accommodate. All of our items have a full return policy, less return shipping (unless we goofed).
Publisher's chromolithographed pictorial wrappers
In honor of Children's Book Week, here are some vintage posters for you to peruse. Enjoy! Helen Sewell, Illustrator, 1941 Elizabeth Orton Jones, Illustrator 1953 Poster Garth Williams, Illustrator, 1955 Roger Duvoisin, Illustrator, 1952 Paul Rand, Illustrator, 1955 Maurice Sendak, Illustrator, 1960 Adrienne Adams, Illustrator, 1963 Bruno Manari, Illustrator, 1964 Antonio Frasconi, Illustrator, 1966 Mercer Mayer, Illustrator, 1970 Lauren deBrunhof, Illustrator, 1978
This is the final page from my vintage ABC book, featuring letters, Y and Z. I hope you've enjoyed all six pages and have been inspired to create something cute. These images are absolutely spectacular, and I've loved sharing them with you. Have fun!
A brave old world of beautiful art and subtle undertones of misogyny.
King Lear Publisher: Scholastic Press (2004)
I've been hard at work on my Back to the Classics Challenge! Recently I needed a fun, light read after some fairly heavy books. This was a children's classic, a Persephone, and a book on my TBR shelf. Plus it was nice and short, with some cute illustrations. Though it's a British children's classic, I'd never heard of The Children Who Lived in a Barn until I started collecting Persephone books. It's very much in the same vein as the American series The Boxcar Children, one of my childhood favorites. Anyway, here's the setup: sometime in the 1930s, the Dunnet family of seven are living in rural England, though they've just moved into a small village and hardly know anyone. The parents get a telegram that the grandmother, who's off somewhere in Switzerland, has taken ill. Without much thought, the parents drop everything and literally fly away, leaving the kids to manage by themselves. Then the parents mysteriously disappear, possibly in a plane crash over the Alps, and Susan, 13, and Robert, 11, must take charge of themselves and their younger siblings, twin brothers who are 9 and a little 7-year-old sister. Their unscrupulous landlord evicts them, but a kind farmer offers to let them stay in the barn in exchange for helping out. At first it seems like a childhood dream to be on their own, but it quickly becomes obvious how hard it is to keep a household running, especially with a limited budget. Susan and Robert try to make do with odd jobs and a small amount of money allocated by the bank, but things are tight, especially after school starts. Some local busybodies have decided they'll keep an eye on the children and are none too sympathetic, mostly more judgmental than helpful. It's the local village folk who are kinder, especially when they see how hard the older children are trying. The beautiful endpapers from the Persephone edition The children even rig up something called a "hay box" to keep their food warm during the day, kind of a makeshift slow-cooker. Here's an illustration of something similar: The hay-box probably looked something like this. Eventually, the situation becomes dire but all turns right in the end, as this is a children's book. I really enjoyed this -- some of my favorite childhood books are those in which the adults are out of the picture and the children are forced to take charge, like the Narnia books and the Boxcar children. I thought the only weak point is the explanation of what happened to the parents, which seemed extremely unlikely and tacked-on. Their characters aren't terribly well-developed and they were more immature than Susan and Robert! However, it was a delight to read and I really enjoyed it. I have two other classic children's books published by Persephone, The Runaway by Anna Elizabeth Hart and The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler. I haven't read either of them yet but I hope I'll like them as much as this one. Has anyone else read this book? What about other children's classics -- which are your favorites?
The Magical Man of Mirth (1910) Author: Elbridge H. Sabin Illustrators: Elenore Plaisted Abbott & Helen Alden Knipe Publisher: George W. Jacobs & Co.
More from my recent photoshoot of annuals covers, this time covering The Schoolgirls' Own Annual. This is a complete run of the title. The first has the Amalgamated Press's 'file copy' sticker on it, as do a couple of the scarce wartime issues so if anyone has decent scans of these sans stickers they would be welcome. Update: Thanks to Alistair McGown I've been able to tinker with the first volume and patched over the sticker. The main artists were A. E. Bestall (better known as the illustrator of Rupert the Bear) (1923-28) and Tom Laidler (1930-35). Not sure who painted the other covers. (* Illustrations © IPC Media.)
This week's theme for "Paint With Me Thursday" is Mood. I had been wanting to draw something magical, and when I put pencil to paper this was what came out. I'm not sure you could call Love a mood or honestly say that this picture depicts it. So I will say the mood is curiosity. Here are a few more mermaid images - these depicting Hans Christian Andersen's sweet, sad fairytale The Little Mermaid. This cover of one of my favorite books,* illustrated by British artist Margaret W. Tarrant (well-known for her depictions of fairies), shows the prince's discovery of the little heartsick sea maiden. from The Little Mermaid (her treasure trove) illustrated by Edmund Dulac To learn more about the Little Mermaid statue (Den lille havfrue) sculpted by Edvard Eriksen and located in the Copenhagen harbor click here. I love how she seems to be always watching and quietly waiting for her prince. When I was a little girl, I spent the vast majority of my summer at our neighborhood pool imagining I was a real mermaid. "Paint With Me Thursday" is hosted by Simply Feather. Other Mood artwork can be found here. Next week's theme is Toys; you should come play along. "Alphabe-Thursday" is hosted by Jenny Matlock...off on my tangent... More M posts can be found here. *Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, With 16 Colour Plates by Margaret W. Tarrant, The Sunshine Series, Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, London, date unknown. Dulac image courtesy of Vintage Printables The Little Mermaid statue photo by Klearchos Kapoutsis.
