"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.

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.