Illustrated Books | Cotsen Children’s Library

Left: Grimm. New York: Summer Garden Editions, 2012 (Cotsen 154500). Right: Sketches for the book Grimm. [New York City]: Mikhail Magaril, [2012] (Cotsen 154503)

Above are two recent acquisitions. The larger of the two, in its brown cloth silk-screened slip case, stamped title piece, and twine ties, is the artist’s book Grimm, created by Mikhail Magaril and Victor Bogorad (New York: Summer Garden Editions, 2012). The work consists of twelve pasted together 23 x 14.5 inch folio leaves (in this way each full-page spread is in fact one large single sheet). Nine of these are solely devoted to a different Grimm tale or theme. Every page is Illustrated throughout by Magaril’s iconic ink blots, printed in letterpress, and silk screened in both black and brown; the work is truly unique (it is actually the first of only ten copies).

We are fortunate to have this very haunting, and very Russian, interpretation of the Grimm fairy tales and their more nefarious aspects. As the artists explain in the book’s afterword, this work is a reflection upon the artists’ childhood experiences of the Grimm world, which they read, and the real world in the USSR, which they lived: “Life there [the USSR] had much in common with the world of Grimm fairy tales. . . The nightmarish regime badly affected the psyche of children and caused the impressionable young minds to see something sinister in every ink blot” (folio page 11). As you can see for yourself, the book is a truly harrowing and fantastical homage to the Brothers Grimm.

Cover (Cotsen 154500)

Endpapers

Title page, spread 1

Spread 2

Der Kleine Däumling (The Little Thumbling), spread 3

The Brother’s Grimm have been included interacting with the fairy tales themselves throughout the work.

Silkscreened image and text of Frau Trude (Mother Trude) notice the brothers again, spread 4

Spread 5

Spread 8

Hansel und Gretel, spread 10

Close up juxtaposition of the two sets of siblings found above.

Jovial portraits of the artists, Bogorad and Magaril respectively, spread 11

Authors’ signatures and copy number, spread 12

The small black cloth box with linen ties (you thought I forgot didn’t you?) is a related treasure to the already prized first item. The title and key to the contents is supplied by the henna inked calligraphic top card:

Sketches for the book Grimm by Mikhail Magaril (Cotsen 154503)

Once opened, one is greeted by a grand total of 87 (15 x 10.5 cm) unnumbered deckle edged cards. Though 27 cards are blank, the remaining 60 cards include a vast array of draft illustrations for Grimm by Magaril. The illustrations, executed exclusively in blue and black ink, have been cut out and pasted onto the decorative cards. Below is a small sampling, notice that some of the proofs were not featured in the final product:

Examples, two of which feature two cards bound together.

This large collection of small cards grants us unique access into the creation of the book Grimm. By viewing these proofs, we are offered a little window with which to view the draft processes and production choices of a very talented contemporary artist: Mikhail Magaril.

Not quite the final illustration

For more work by Magaril held at Princeton, check out this blog post by our colleague Julie Mellby, the curator of Graphic Arts: Mikhail Magaril

Mr. Cotsen could never pass by a really good example of an Art Nouveau picture book. At their best, the illustrations, decorations, bindings, and endpapers come together as a whole and I have always thought that appealed to him as a master packager (the original concept for Neutrogena products was all his). Here are four examples of German, Swiss, and Viennese picture books with especially striking endpaper designs.

Below is volume 3 of Jugendland (1903), a periodical for boys and girls edited by Heinrich Moser and Ulrich Kohlbrunner that was published by the Swiss firm Künzli. Its binding design, the endpapers, and title page are all executed by illustrator and caricaturist Arpad Schmidhammer (1857-1921). He got his start contributing to annuals like Jugendland and Knecht Ruprecht, but is perhaps better known for his propagandistic picture books like Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein.

Front cover. Jugendland: ein Buch für die junge Welt und ihre Freunde. Zürich: Gebrüder Künzli, [1901-1903]. (Cotsen 18814)

Endpapers. (Cotsen 18814)

Title page. (Cotsen 18814)

The illustrations for the binding, endpapers and title page of Gartenlaube-Bilderbuch der deutscher Jugend (1902), on the other hand, are more uniform in style and subject than those for Jugendland. The picture on the front board is by Hermann Kaulbach (1846-1909), a well-known painter famous for idealized pictures of children. No credits are given for the endpapers or title vignette, but someone made sure that the theme of books and reading was repeated on the title page.

Front cover. Gartenlaube Bilderbuch. Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, [1902]. (Cotsen 19596)

Endpapers. (Cotsen 19596)

Title page. (Cotsen 19596)

Except for the goblin’s eyes peeking out of the “O,” the cloth boards of O Hastromanvi [The Goblin] (Prague: B. Koči, 1903) by Jožena Schwaigerová are conventional compared with the patterned endpapers. Both the binding design and endpapers contrast sharply with the rather severe title page, with the bold type cutting deeply into the thick paper. Whoever drew the repeat of frogs and pearls is not identified, so perhaps it was also the work of the Bohemian illustrator Hanus Schwaiger (1854-1909) who did the delightfully creepy pictures for the story.

Front cover. O Hastrmanovi. Praze: B. Kočí, [1903]. (Cotsen 22067)

Endpapers. (Cotsen 22067)

Title page. (Cotsen 22067)

There’s a frog prince on the front board of Ernst Dannheiser’s Miaulina: Ein Märchenbuch für kleine Kinder (Cologne: Schaffstein, 1902), but he hasn’t got any pearls on his crown. Illustrator Julius Diez (1870-1953) let his imagination run wild in this collection of fairy tales. In the book, the tales are told to an industrious little girl by the cat Miaulina, who is shown with a satchel over one shoulder. There is the repeat of the pine tree men and red squirrels on the endpapers, an added illustrated title page where Miaulina eyes little mice watering the garden, and title page dominated by the figure of a fantastically dressed Moorish slave boy, who bears Miaulina on a pillow amidst a riot of exotic birds. And I left out the illustrated vignettes of the poor veteran mouse begging in the cold and the jaunty little fellow riding a rooster, not to mention the frame of mice, beetles and weird rootmen enclosing the table of contents!

Front cover. Miaulina. Köln a. Rh.: Schafstein & Co., [1902]. (Cotsen 34365)

Endpapers. (Cotsen 34365)

Decorative title page. (Cotsen 34365)

Title page. (Cotsen 34365)

These exuberant picture books may be over the top, but their packaging gives contemporary bindings of laminated boards, or sober cloth backstrip and boards covered in a contrasting color, a run for their money…

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Category Archives: Illustrated Books

Mikhail Magaril’s Grimm: A Fractured Fairy Tale of an Artist’s Book

Endpapers from Art Nouveau Picture Books