Saturday 23 June 2007

Playmates in print

And you thought you would see Playboy bunnies here? No, no, no.
"Playmates in print" is the title of a childrens book by Edna Whiteman. And it's illustrated by no one else than Earl Oliver Hurst! While his illustration art from the 30's and 40's is pretty common, seeing this book from 1926 made my heart skip a beat. Naturally I bought it on the spot. It has six full page plates, an illustrated title page, wonderful endpapers and loads of small illustrations in black and white. All done in a style that makes me think of another favorite: Gustaf Tenggren. (Click on the label below to see a piece of early Tenggren work.) There are traces of master illustrator Arthur Rackham to be found in these pieces too.
Here are few scans from the book. If there's interest in seeing more I'll post the rest of the full page illustrations.




For more on Hurst please see the book "The art of Earl Oliver Hurst" now on sale from Bud Plant!
+ some more artwork here to wet your appetite on the book!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Joakim Gunnarsson said...

Thanks for your very interesting comment about the Hurst pics!
And, yes, please send over all the Hurst originals you got! I really apprecciate that you will donate them to my collection. Thank U!