Sunday Safari - Better Homes & Gardens

Else Wenz-Viëtor, illustration from Hochzeit Im Walde, 1921, thanks to Arthur van Kruining

It's September again, a year since I posted Animalarium's first collection of animal houses,
and I am in the mood for more dream homes! I hope you are too...

Felix Lorioux, illustration from Fables De La Fontaine via the Hollywood Animation Archive

Miss Prickles from Bobby Bear's Annual, 1949, thanks to moonflygirl

Maginel Wright, thanks to Japonisme

 Romain Simon, illustration from Bravo tortue, 1950, thanks to micky the pixel 

Margaret Bloy Graham, illustration from The meanest squirrel I ever met, 1962,

via Curio Books

 Garth Williams, illustration from Three little animals, 1956, thanks to Sweet Juniper!

Russell and Lillian Hoban, illustration from The Mole Family's Christmas, 1969,

thanks to Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves

Adelchi Galloni, illustration from La caccia alla tigre, 1975

Jean de Brunhoff, illustration from Babar and Zephir, 1937

Doris Smith, two illustrations from House by Mouse, thanks to raincloud and bijou kaleidoscope

Jill Barklem, illustration from Spring Story - A Birthday Surprise for Wilfred

Agata Dudek, illustration from The Crows of Pearblossom

Daria Tessler at Animal Sleep Stories

Simona & Simone

I've been wanting to take some photos of these beautiful volumes since I bought them 

at the Bologna Book Fair, but only now I've found the time to actually do it.

Last year I had already posted about Topipittori, one of my favorite Italian publishers

of illustrated children's books, and this time at the fair I had a chat with its founders,

Giovanna Zoboli and Paolo Canton. Turns out that Paolo and I knew each other

when we were teenagers! Anyway, I really love what they do, and was very happy

to get a copy of the wonderful Vorrei avere signed by the artist SImona Mulazzani...

GIovanna Zoboli's Vorrei avere (I wish I had) is an ode to the beauty and wonder of animals

sung through the poetic words of a child enamored with nature. Mulazzani's enchanting

 illustrations interpret every verse with great sensitivity and a richness of visual inventions.

Love the endpapers with the illustration sketches!

I have also previously featured the works of SImone Rea, one of Italy's brightest young illustrators. 

His elegant paintings illustrate this new translation of Aesop's Fables with warmth 

and a wonderful sense of color and composition. 

Coincidentally, I have already posted the equally sophisticated Aesop interpretation 

by Jean-François Martin which won the Bologna Ragazzi Award this year.

To each his own, I love them both!

Matazo Kayama

Matazo Kayama (1927-2004) was born in Kyoto, the son of a designer of Kimono. 

He used to play in his father's studio, and loved to see him and his disciples

at work sketching and painting. He also learned a lot from his father's collection 

of international art books. Kayama started making art, and when he was 13 years old

he entered the Japanese Painting Academy in Kyoto. In 1944 he went on to study 

traditional Nihonga techniques at Tokyo National Academy of Fine Arts, at a time 

when the country was in the grips of World War II. His father died at the end 

of the war, but Kayama managed to keep studying art in Tokyo 

while helping his mother and younger sisters in Kyoto. 

 A Thousand Cranes, 1970, a pair of six-fold silk screens, 1.6 x 3.7m each

(click on the image to enlarge)

Kayama became a famous painter in his early 30's and held his first personal exhibition 

abroad in New York in 1961. Animals were one of his favorite themes throughout his career, 

while his sources of inspiration shifted from modern Western art to traditional RImpa Japanese 
painting and Chinese ink paintings. All of these influences were reinterpreted through Kayama's 

own refined and innovative style. His work has been exhibited at the Central Museum of Beijing 

and the British Museum, and in 2009 a large retrospective was held at Tokyo's National Art Center.

thanks to Sandi Vincent for this image

Happy Days & Beautiful Dreams

My best wishes for 2011 to all Animalarium readers!

I salute the new year and bid adieu to the old
with Yuri Nortein's hauntingly nostalgic Tale of Tales,
because it contains many of the things I love best:
poetry, beauty, inspiration, the innocence of childhood, 
the power of memory and imagination against history's nightmares...

and a little grey wolf as a prelude to many more to come

Creatures of Christmas Past

Prang's Natural History Series for Children, 1878

I recently spent a few happy hours browsing the huge archives of the International

 Children's DIgital Library, in particular the incredibly rich Baldwin Collection 

consisting of 1986 books published for children from the mid-to-late 19th century. 

The collection was contributed to the ICDL by the Baldwin Library of Historical 

Children's Materials at the University of Florida and digitized through grants 

from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The International Children's DIgital Library won the American Library Association
President's 2010 Award for International Library Innovation, and was named one of 

25 best websites for teaching and learning by the American Association of School Librarians.

Elise Bake, Der Ball der Tiere, 1891

The scans are wonderful and I can almost smell the old yellowed paper...

These nostalgic covers go very well with my own sentimental take on festivities,

right next to Christmas Pudding, glass baubles and old Hollywood movies!

 The Dog's Grand Dinner Party, 1869

 The Carrion Crow, 1880

 Dash's Holiday, 1880

 Child's First Book, 1880

 J. Lawson, Clever Hans, 1880

Robert Michael Ballantyne, Chit-Chat by a Motherly Cat, 1888

 Giacomelli, Bird Pictures, 1880

Justin H. Howard, Domestic Animals, 1884

 Domestic Animals, 1880

William Small and Harrison Weir, The Childrens Posy, 1879

The Bird and Insects' Post Office, 1880

 The Discontented Frogs, 1880