Natalie Frank: Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Natalie Frank: Tales of the Brothers Grimm is officially released on May 26th but is shipping now.

Natalie emailed me to share some info about the book and an art exhibit featuring her work. Here are some of the images from the book and Natalie's own words. You can click on the images to see them larger.

From Natalie Frank's email to SurLaLune:

I am an artist in NY and have just put out my first book, picturing 36 tales of the unsanitized Grimm fairy tales. It has hand-drawn marginalia throughout, 75 color drawings--a third of which are on view at The Drawing Center now in Soho through late June--and has an introduction by Jack Zipes, whose translations I also used, and essays by feminist art historian Linda Nochlin and the curator at The Drawing Center, Claire Gilman and a conversation with theater director and designer, Julie Taymor. It is published by Damiani and distributed by DAP. It was a blast to do and is the largest collection of Grimm's every illustrated by a fine artist. I found them to be such remarkable stories, especially as the originals from 1812-57 are so unknown in their real forms.

Book description:

For Tales of the Brothers Grimm, 36 celebrated and lesser-known of the unsanitized fairy tales collected by the illustrious brothers were carefully chosen by artist Natalie Frank, reinterpreted in 75 gouache and chalk pastel drawings, and cast in a Surrealist dreamscape. This volume, designed by Marian Bantjes, is the largest collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales ever illustrated by a fine artist. Frank's irreverent palette, sophisticated use of color and inventive depiction of these dark narratives capture the original stories with a contemporary and unflinching eye. Each of the tales opens with a hand-drawn title page and is framed by a unique border; small drawings punctuate each story in the tradition of classic fairy-tale editions. The foremost Grimm scholar, Jack Zipes, introduces the book.