Day 6: Kinuko Y. Craft in Fairy Tale Art: Illustrations from Children's Books

Kinuko Y. Craft is perhaps the most famous of all the illustrators featured in Fairy Tale Art: Illustrations from Children's Books. Her work is licensed in numerous places and is deservedly so. She is one of my favorite illustrators working today--I adore her Twelve Dancing Princesses. She was also a hit with my mother and husband who have very different tastes in art but reacted immediately to Craft's skill.  You can read more about her on her website.  Here's an excerpt:

Kinuko Y. Craft is one of the most widely respected and well known fantasy artists in the United States today. She considers herself a story teller. Her past commissions have included paintings for the book covers of many well known fantasy authors, opera posters, fairy tale books and covers for many national magazines. During her career she has become known for meticulous attention to detail, a passionate love of fine art and a deep knowledge of art history. Kinuko Y. Craft considers her self a story teller. Her fairy tale books are currently distributed in the USA, other English language countries, Europe, Greece, China and Korea. Her art is also widely licensed on calendars, posters, greeting cards and other consumer goods. Her work has been widely exhibited and is now in private collections in New York City, Atlanta GA, Santa Barbara CA, Dallas TX, Connecticut, San Francisco CA, Italy, Japan and Greece. It can also be found public collections at The National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, The Cornish Colony Museum in Windsor, VT, The Museum of American Illustration in New York City, The National Geographic Society and other corporate collections.

Most recently, her original covers for the Simon Pulse Once Upon a Time series have been replaced in the new reprints, but I am happy I have the original covers. Her work graces many book covers, in fact, and appears in many posters and other forms. Her part of the exhibit was comprised mostly of giclee prints, but three were originals also.  All were beautiful but I was curious to see the brushstrokes--they are barely more detectable over the reprints they are so fine. Only the subtle paint texture revealed they were the originals.

From Sleeping Beauty

From Sleeping Beauty

From Sleeping Beauty

From Cinderella

From Cinderella (This was much darker in person.)

From Cinderella

From Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave

From Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave

Featured books:

  

Other books not featured: