A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Despite spending years tracking down the work of various illustrators I’ve never been as familiar with the major works of Maxfield Parrish as I might. I’ve seen a couple of the plates from this 1909 edition before but the majority are new discoveries. They’re as lucious as you’d expect from Parrish, and for once the paper and inks haven’t been spoiled by age. See all the pages or download the entire book here.
The tip for this one came via Beautiful Century. Thomas Mackenzie (1887–1944) was a minor British illustrator whose work I hadn’t seen before, and if I’d seen the picture above uncredited I might have taken it for something by Kay Nielsen or Edmund Dulac. Mackenzie’s colour plates for the 1919 edition of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp in Rhyme by Arthur Ransome are very similar to his more famous contemporaries, while the black-and-white pieces owe a considerable debt to Aubrey Beardsley, especially the title page below. Not all the drawing is as assured as one might hope but the book as a whole is still worth a look.
