Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Artist feature: Jennie Harbour

Very little is known about artist Jennie Harbour (1893-1959) -she doesn't even have her own wikipedia page! She illustrated many fairy tales in the Art Deco era, and if you need a little Art 101 refresher like I did, according to wikipedia:  "It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by rich colors, bold geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation."

Cinderella:

 
 
 
Little Red Riding Hood:
Sometimes simple black and white can be more striking than lush color. I love the little wolf lurking in the corner of this one-
 
 
Sleeping Beauty:
 
Hansel and Gretel:
 
 
More of Jennie Harbour's illustrations can be viewed over on Surlalune.

5 comments:

  1. These are lovely. Her people remind me a little of Gustav Klimt.

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  2. Wow, the Cinderella one is particularly striking. The Hansel and Gretel one actually reminds me of Tolkien's drawing of the troll's scene. Thanks for sharing :)

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  3. I love this illustrator. I have a little foldout book that has all the color illustrations you posted up and a few more. It's so magical and inspiring for my own art.

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  4. I became fascinated with the work of Jennie Harbour and decided to write her story. I also created a web site dedicated to her work. The link is here, if anyone is interested.
    https://sites.google.com/site/jennieharbour/

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  5. Please don't link to other people's images - this is Blogger, you can easily upload images to your own gallery and not steal bandwidth.

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