"Dressed Animal" Illustrator Margaret Tempest (1892 - 1982)

Margaret Tempest began her illustrating career in the 1920s and is best known as the creator of Little Grey Rabbit and Fuzzypeg the hedgehog, characters found in a series of children's books written by British writer Alison Uttley. First published in 1929, the books are still being re-issued today. Margaret Tempest illustrated the first 30 books in the series, continuing to do so until 1970. It was Tempest's distinctive and memorable depiction of these characters which made them instantly identifiable and a household name, but which  ultimately caused a bitter divide between the author and the artist. They violently disagreed not only as to who deserved the most credit for creating the characters, but also over the issue of copyright ownership. Tempest  worked also with numerous other authors and also wrote and illustrated 20 books of her own in the 1940s and 1950s, including the Pinky Mouse and Curley Cobbler series. She was also one of the Medici Society's more popular and enduring artists, publishing her art as collectible postcards for many years.

To visit my online store offering a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring all my whimsical animal illustrations, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

And Now a Word From Our Sponsor...Adele from Whimbletails™

This my latest painting, called "Shrewy's Farm Stand." Shrewy is a becoming a popular character around the Whimbletails™ world! When he's not busy selling produce to his loyal customers like Mrs. Crow, he also operates the Pumpkin Cafe, dishing out such tasty treats as Pumpkin Soup, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Pie, and faithfully subscribing to the credo, "waste not, want not," even the Pumpkin Seeds. See below! If you'd like to see the complete collection of my Whimbletails™ paintings, please go to my web site by clicking here.

                           

Molly Brett (1902 - 1990)

I give credit to Molly Brett in particular for inspiring me to become an anthropomorphic animal illustrator. Many years ago, I came across a display of Medici Society postcards in a little shop in Boston. I was absolutely fascinated by the whole concept of animals dressed as humans, participating  in human activities! I bought a few cards, eventually lost them, and went on to other types of artwork. But I never forgot the postcards and now, when I look back knowing the styles of many of the Medici artists, I realize it was Molly's work I was admiring. I eventually took the plunge (after deciding it was perfectly okay for "serious" artists to paint cute animals, especially since that's what I wanted to do), and the result is my own collection of cute animal illustrations, called Whimbletails™. Here's a little biographical info on Molly:

Molly (Mary Elizabeth) Brett was born in 1902 and grew up Surrey, Great Britain, surrounded by animals and nature. Her mother, Mary Gould Brett, was a respected animal painter who encouraged her daughter to paint from life, and this is reflected in Molly's gift for making her animals look thoroughly naturalistic while giving them human characteristics and activities. And like Beatrix Potter, her artwork also reflects her great observational powers in depicting nature, especially notable in the two illustrations above.

Molly began her art training with a correspondence course in illustration, followed by formal instruction at Press Art School and the Guilford Art School. It was at Guildford that she met Margaret Tarrant (also destined to attain substantial fame as an illustrator), who soon became a close friend and lived with her in Cornwall. She began her career by illustrating "weekly papers" for children. One of her earliest commissions was to illustrate stories by Enid Blyton. Inspired by this, she went on to write and illustrate 21 books of her own for the Medici Society of London, with whom she was associated for sixty years. Medici has published over 500 of her paintings as postcards, greeting cards and prints.

Molly Brett's work has enchanted generations of children with its beautifully drawn details, subtle colors and magical atmosphere. Her work follows in the tradition of other twentieth-century "dressed animal" illustrators such as Beatrix Potter, Margaret Tempest, Racey Helps, and others.

Would you like to see my own whimsical animal art? Please visit my online store, Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop, featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own cute animal illustrations.

"Anthropomorphic," Anyone?

All dressed animal art, also known as animal character art, is "anthropomorphic." This big word actually has quite a simple meaning: "the attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena. The term derives from the combination of the Greek words ánthropos (human) and morphe, (shape or form)."

This illustration - "The Interrupted  Feast" by Racey Helps - is a perfect example. As badger cooks up little campfire meal of sausage links, the smoke and flames from the fire bring the local Fire Department (comprised entirely of bunnies) running! It's humorous, colorful, sweet, and fun, and a great example of mid-20th century anthropomorphic, or dressed animal, art.

If you'd like to see my own anthropomorphic art, Whimbletails™, please click here. 

To visit my online store featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring all my whimsical animal illustrations, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

Puttin' on the Dog: Cassius Marcellus Coolidge and Arthur Sarnoff

Here are two illustrators who excelled at what is known as "dressed animal" art. They both specialized in dogs who are participating in human activites, primarily pool, cards, and, in the case of Sarnoff, golf. I've shown them together due to their strong similarities. (Sarnoff was directly inspired by Coolidge.) Remarkable for their detail and humor, prints by both artists remain extremely popular even today. The top two paintings are by Coolidge; the bottom is by Sarnoff. Here's a little more about each artist.

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844-1934) was an American artist known primarily for his Dogs Playing Poker paintings and inventing the concept of life-size cutouts into which one's head is placed to create funny character photographs. While he had no formal training as an artist, his natural talent for drawing led him to create cartoons for his local newspaper during his twenties. In 1900, Coolidge contracted with the advertising firm of Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, Minnesota to create sixteen oil paintings of dogs in various human poses, nine of which depict dogs playing poker. They quickly became a national success and finally earned him, at late mid-life, fame and fortune.
His anthropomorphised dog paintings have inspired not only American illustrator Arthur Sarnoff, who became famous for his Dogs Playing Pool series of paintings, but also hundreds of other imitators.
In 2005, two of his paintings, "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo", sold at auction for $590,400, a record for Coolidge, whose previous top sale was $74,000.

Arthur Sarnoff (1912 - 2000) was an American artist who studied at the Industrial School and the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. He was a student of John Clymer and Andrew Wyeth. Sarnoff was a member of the Society of Illustrators and exhibited widely including at the National Academy of Design. While he did extensive commercial work for weekly magazines and his art appeared in a variety of advertising campaigns, he became equally known for his pool playing, card playing, and golfing dogs. Although his best known work is a painting of dogs playing pocket billiards entitled "Jack the Ripper", another called "The Hustler" was the best-selling print of the 1950s.

To visit my online store featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own whimsical animal illustrations, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

Tweet, Tweet! A VERY Cute Baby Bird Sculpture

Animal art doesn't have to be just paintings or illustrations! It can also include other forms of expression like this wonderfully creative bird's nest clay sculpture by the very talented 10-year-old, Dominique Reano of Santo Domingo and Cochiti Pueblos, New Mexico. Can you see why she won both a Youth Pottery Award and the Youth Smile Award at this year's Indian Market in Santa Fe? Birdie even seems to have a piece of shell stuck upon his little head. Cute, cute, cute!

To visit my online store featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own whimsical animal art, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

The Alfred Mainzer Company and the Dressed Animal Art of Eugen Hartung, a Critical Analysis

From the 1940s through the 1960s, the Alfred Mainzer Company of Long Island City, NY published a series of linen and photochrome humorous cat postcards illustrated by Eugen Hartung (or Hurtong) (1897-1973), sometimes referred to as "Mainzer Cats". These postcards normally illustrate settings that are filled with action, often with a minor disaster just about to occur. While the dressed cats were by far the most popular and most plentiful cards, Hartung also painted other dressed animals - primarily mice, dogs, and hedgehogs. The cards of this series were first printed in a continuous tone by Max Kunzli of Switzerland. Typically, the Kunzli cats are featured in European settings and the cards are not as brightly colored as the American editions. Later cards were printed in halftone lithography in a variety of countries, including Belgium, Turkey, Thailand, and Spain. Alfred Mainzer, Inc., still exists, and recently published a new collectors' set of 126 dressed-animal postcards which includes 118 dressed cats, 7 dressed dogs, and 1 dressed mice postcards.

My own feelings about the dressed cat paintings of Eugen Hartung? Sorry to say, definitely mixed. On the one hand, they are beautifully composed and skillfully executed. He obviously possessed a massive amount of artistic talent. Great time and care were taken with every painting - the detail is a sheer delight, and is the thing most quoted as a favorite characteristic of Hartung's dressed cat paintings. And perhaps their best feature is their action, humour, and suspense - every painting without exception tells a story, which is key in creating a successful work of art. They are without a doubt a joy to behold. On the other hand, however, I can't look at his work without seeing paintings of PEOPLE. Being an artist myself, I sense he often worked from photos of people individually and/or in groups in action poses, and simply substituted cat heads for human heads. I think their human-style bodies are far too literal and an unsettling  - even unnerving - contrast to their animal heads. Unlike Hartung, most other "dressed animal" artists will keep the NATURAL SHAPE OF THE ANIMAL. A mole by Beatrix Potter may be wearing a vest and spats, but he will still be shaped like a mole. The effect is more believable (if a dressed animal can be believable!), more charming in its naturalness, and considerably less disconcerting than a body with human proportions and an animal's head. Quite honestly, Hartung's dressed cats kinda creep me out! I've posted two cards in which this seems, to me, to be especially evident. What do you think?

Would you like to see my own whimsical animal art? Please visit my online store, Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop, featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own cute animal illustrations.

Flickr Group "Animals in Your Art"

Did you know that there's a Flickr group with more than 2600 members and 39,000 photos of artwork called "Animals in Your Art"? If you love animals or animal art, click here to see a huge variety of illustrations, photographs, paintings, and more, ranging from ultra-realism to fun cartoons, of all sorts of animals. I have a few of my own illustrations posted - here's just one, called "The Explorer's Club":

To visit my online store featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own whimsical animal art, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

George Leonard Carlson 1887-1962

While George Carlson is perhaps best known for his work with the Jingle Jangle comic books, he had a long career illustrating children's books and authoring numerous guides to the art of cartooning.
He appears to have begun his career about 1916, but it was during the 1920s that his work became widely known, with illustrations for "Jane and the Owl," "Adventures of Jane," "The Adventures of Toby Spaniel," and others children's books. In 1933, he authored "Draw Comics - Here's How!," a book of instructions, tips, and techniques for cartooning, followed by at least two other guides to the art of drawing comics. In 1936, he illustrated the dust jacket for the first edition of Gone With the Wind. A million copies of Margaret Mitchell's book were printed and sold, and Carlson's reputation as an illustrator was made. In 1939, he was recruited by children's publisher Platt & Munk to illustrate Howard Garis' classic series of Uncle Wiggily stories, of which he did at least a dozen. He continued this association Platt & Munk for years, illustrating numerous "Pastime Fun Books" - Fun-Time Games, Puzzles, Stunts, Drawings, Riddles, Mazes, and other pictorial challenges. During the 1940's and 50's, he continued to produce works along the same lines - guides to drawing, comics, and more Fun books. Carlson died in 1962.

The illustrations above appear in "Uncle Wiggly and His Friends", originally published in 1939 by Platt & Monk. (How cute is that elephant?!?)

To visit my online store featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own whimsical animal art, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

A Short History of the Medici Society

The Medici Society, located in London, England, was founded in 1908 by Philip Lee Warner and Eustace Gurney. The company's original aim was "to bring artists' work to the appreciation of a wider public", and subjects were chosen for their "artistic value, beauty, or sentiment, and were sold for the lowest price commercially possible." In keeping with this mission, the artwork was originally reproduced as high-quality postcards. Medici began publishing greeting cards in the 1930s, and some of the artists whose work was published in those days are still in print today. Some of their artists included Molly Brett, Racey Helps, Margaret  and Audrey Tarrant, Noel Hopkin, Rene Cloke, and Margaret Tempest. Currently, the company has diversified into other publications, including stationery, calendars, seasonal cards for Christmas and Easter, reproduction prints, and children's books, with a focus upon dressed animals, fairies, and other subjects of wide appeal. To see more, go to: http://www.medici.co.uk

Pictured above is "Bonfire Night" by Molly Brett

To visit my online store featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own whimsical animal art, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

Picture of the Day - (Angus Clifford) Racey Helps

A prolific artist and author of more than two dozen children's books, Racey Helps was also one of the Medici Society's most popular postcard artists. Like Beatrix Potter, Helps began his career by illustrating his own stories and mailing them off to a child - in this case, his own daughter, living away from home in the safer countryside during WWII. Help's work was discovered by a publisher while he worked as a hairdresser with his wife. Although he died in 1971, his descendants in Great Britain maintain a fabulous website devoted to Helps and his work, with an extensive biography, bibliography, and a ton of gorgeous reproductions of his illustrations. The URL is: http://www.raceyhelps.co.uk  Enjoy!

I've chosen this work called "The Astonished Angler" not only because it's a prime example of cute or dressed animal art, but from an artistic point of view, it's a smashing success - beautifully composed, with flowing lines all circling about the central point of action; employs a very effective color scheme, using primarily the three analogous colors of blue, green, and yellow; has accurate yet simplified botanical detail; and provides a smile just viewing it. What more could a picture offer?

Would you like to see my own whimsical animal art? Please visit my online store, Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop, featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own cute animal illustrations.

Lang Campbell - "Comic" style animal character art

There's two camps, or distinct styles, in animal character illustration. This first is naturalistic, like Beatrix Potter's. You may be aware that her first artistic efforts were in scientific illustration - her renderings of mushrooms, bugs, flowers, etc. are superb. When she began to illustrate her books, she never compromised her facility for naturalism. A frog may have been wearing a waistcoat, but he always remained an anatomically correct frog!

The second style is comic - usually line drawings, with flat colors; and exagerrated features with limited regard for anatomical accuracy. One of my favorite "comic" cute animal illustrators is Lang (Lansing) Campbell. I can't even look at his "Dinky Ducklings" without laughing! Are those guys too goofy or what? Here's two examples:

 

Lansing “Lang” Campbell was a 20th c. American illustrator and cartoonist best known for illustrating the Howard Garis cartoon series "Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures" (started 1910), later to become the basis for several dozen books featuring the beloved character. During the 1930's, Campbell also created a few strips and books of his own, including "Piggy Pigtail", "Paddy the Pup", "Dippy Doodlebug", "Bizzy Izzy Humbug", "The Dinky Ducklings", "Duck and Applesauce", "Dicky Bird’s Diary," "Merry Murphy" and more. After an active career in New York City, he retired to Boothbay Harbor, ME about 1950, where he spent the rest of his life. Exact dates of birth and death unkown.

My own animal character art? A cross between the two. A good deal of naturalism, especially in the botanical areas of the painting, but a bit of artistic license when it comes to rendering the animals - especially insects! I try not to stray too far...but they persist in coming out cute! See my painting "Best Buddies" below (take a close look at Fat Mr. Bee!)

To visit my online store featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring all my  whimsical animal art, please go to Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop.

Clara Atwood Fitts

Since I'm always scouting around for examples of cute animal illustrations, I was really excited to come across an old 1927 book at my local thrift store called "Pine Tree Playmates." A beginner reader, it was written by children's author Mary Francis Blaisdell and illustrated by an artist I'd never heard of, Clara Atwood Fitts.  What fun to find someone new! Since the illustrations were so beautifully done - by someone who was obviously well-practiced in animal character illustration - I tried to find out more about her. There's not much. She was born in Worcester, MA in 1874, attended the Boston Museum School, was a member of the  prestigious Copley Society, and lived and worked primarily in NH. A quick search of Amazon Books shows  considerable artistic versatility, with children's, religious, and classics to her credit. Her date of death is unknown. Above are a few examples of her work. They are extremely charming, beautifully drawn, well composed, and cute, cute, cute! Don't you agree?

Would you like to see my own whimsical animal art? Please visit my online store, Adele's Cute Animal Art Shop, featuring a large variety of great products, gifts, and collectibles featuring my own cute animal illustrations.