Dulac, Edmund
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 28 January 2015 at 11:00 GMT
Description
A fairy garland, being fairy tales from the old French. London...: Cassell & Company, Limited/New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928. 4to, half-title signed by Dulac, dated 1928, alongside an original watercolour sketch of a fairy, 12 coloured plates, original quarter vellum gilt
Footnote
Note: One of 1000 copies
What has become known as the 'golden age of illustration' spanned from the 1880s to the 1920s, ignited by Daniel Vierge and other pioneers who developed printing techniques that allowed reproduction of drawings and paintings with reasonable facility. Stylistically there was a prominent influence from the Pre- Raphaelites and Art Nouveau period. Over this bright era there was an abundance of talent, with Kay Nielsen, Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham all prominent figures.
Edmund Dulac, born in Toulouse in 1884, abandoned his legal studies to pursue art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He studied briefly in Paris before moving to London where he gained his first job from J. M. Dent, illustrating an edition of the collected works of the Brontë sisters consisting of 60 coloured plates, a huge commission for a young man.
Dulac's arrival in London coincided with developments in the printing technique that not only suited but also enhanced his style. The advancements led to improved colour reproduction which artists then defined in black ink lines. Arthur Rackham's Rip van Winkle (see lot 444) being an early example, just as Dulac was coming to London. However, unlike Rackham, Dulac had not endured the previous decade, that required a black ink line to mask blurred colours and provide definition. So as Rackham continued to approach the new medium as an ink drawing, Dulac felt free to approach it as a watercolour.
1913 saw a stylistic change for Dulac, his dreamy, mellow blues gave way to a more vibrant colour spectrum. This oriental inspiration was never to leave him but as the next year saw the outbreak of the First World War he dedicated himself to relief effort books. At the end of the war Dulac found himself in an obsolete profession and was forced to diversify. During the rest of his life he found work designing theatre sets and graphics, postage stamps and bookplates. In the course of his career he illustrated famous works including Sleeping Beauty, Stories of Hans Christian Andersen and The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Though capable of using pen and ink, it was his uninhibited use of watercolour that set him apart from his contemporaries.