Kay Nielsen (1886 - 1957)
I'm keeping an ongoing collection of some of my favourite Nielsen illustrations for my own reference. It will probably be intensely boring for everyone else. You've been warned.
I love how norse Nielsen's illustrations can feel:
(they may have also increased my appreciation for birch trees)
I love bird motifs and how the cape feels like a repetition of the surrounding birds' wings' shapes and patterns. I wish there were a dress/outfit inspired by this picture. When I saw Catherine Maladrino's RTW collection earlier this year, this bird dress was like having that wish almost become real.
Detail:
This picture reminds me of David Lynch's Blue Velvet because of the smokey sultriness of the colours.
He does puffed up Perrault-style gentrified fairy tale illustrations beautifully as well:
The detail in this is so amazing! I was in a bookstore with softlyforgotten recently and we started flipping through this book about Belle Epoch fashion designer Paul Poiret and there was a dress in it with a pattern (designed by Raoul Dufy, I think) that was like the background to this picture. We both just stopped and stared for a couple of minutes at how finely intricate it was.
Detail:
These three are from his Hans Christian Andersen collection
I wish I had better reproductions of the In Powder and in Crinoline illustrations too but the ones on my computer are all a bit crappy. He uses colours really brightly in that set so the dimness conferred by digital transfer much more obviously detracts from them in a way that isn't as much of a problem with the gloomier Scandinavian/Grimm/Andersen stories. And sometimes in trying to fix that, the higher contrast brightens out his softer palette so...
Here's a link to nocloo.com's collection which looks pretty good (but has watermarks) if you're still interested after reading all this:
http://www.nocloo.com/gallery2/v/kay-nielsen-powder-crinoline/
Further links:
In Powder and in Crinolines (small images)
Some more from East of the Sun, West of the Moon:
Kay Nielsen's page at SurLaLune Fairy Tales
I love how norse Nielsen's illustrations can feel:
(they may have also increased my appreciation for birch trees)
I love bird motifs and how the cape feels like a repetition of the surrounding birds' wings' shapes and patterns. I wish there were a dress/outfit inspired by this picture. When I saw Catherine Maladrino's RTW collection earlier this year, this bird dress was like having that wish almost become real.
Detail:
This picture reminds me of David Lynch's Blue Velvet because of the smokey sultriness of the colours.
He does puffed up Perrault-style gentrified fairy tale illustrations beautifully as well:
The detail in this is so amazing! I was in a bookstore with softlyforgotten recently and we started flipping through this book about Belle Epoch fashion designer Paul Poiret and there was a dress in it with a pattern (designed by Raoul Dufy, I think) that was like the background to this picture. We both just stopped and stared for a couple of minutes at how finely intricate it was.
Detail:
These three are from his Hans Christian Andersen collection
I wish I had better reproductions of the In Powder and in Crinoline illustrations too but the ones on my computer are all a bit crappy. He uses colours really brightly in that set so the dimness conferred by digital transfer much more obviously detracts from them in a way that isn't as much of a problem with the gloomier Scandinavian/Grimm/Andersen stories. And sometimes in trying to fix that, the higher contrast brightens out his softer palette so...
Here's a link to nocloo.com's collection which looks pretty good (but has watermarks) if you're still interested after reading all this:
http://www.nocloo.com/gallery2/v/kay-nielsen-powder-crinoline/
Further links:
In Powder and in Crinolines (small images)
Some more from East of the Sun, West of the Moon:
Kay Nielsen's page at SurLaLune Fairy Tales