Edmund Dulac’s Fairyland-enchanted Fairyland Lovers, Beauty and the Beast: the American Weekly Illustrations Dulac’s American Weekly

EDMUND DULAC’S FAIRYLANDIn 1924, English artist and Golden Age illustrator Edmund Dulac published his first series for the front covers of The American Weekly magazine, the Sunday supplement of the William Randolph Hearst newspaper chain. These beautiful watercolors have never been republished since their first printing. On this 100th anniversary, we are reproducing all thirteen series of 106 watercolor illustrations from this 1924-1951 extraordinary and almost unknown body of work. All the images have been digitally restored as closely as possible to their original condition.The two series reproduced here find Dulac at his most romantic. Cinderella and Prince Charming lead the Fairyland Lovers with the moment the Prince tries the lost slipper on Cinderella, while her wicked step-sisters look on in shock. Prince Ahmed finds his lover in the Fairy Peri-Banu, an Arabian Nights tale of love and adventure also later covered in his final American Weekly series in 1951. Ivan and his Chestnut Horse, included as a book illustration in 1916, makes his reappearance here, bounding into the air to kiss his Princess. And no romantic collection would be complete without Sleeping Beauty being awakened by her Prince. This is Dulac’s second rendering of the scene. The first was his art nouveau frontispiece for his Sleeping Beauty tales of 1910, but this illustration is pure art deco, and was sold as an art print in England. Villeroy and Bosch reproduced the entire series in porcelain plates.Dulac illustrated ‘Beauty and the Beast’ first in his 1910 Sleeping Beauty and Other Tales…, but none of these illustrations are repeated. Here the Beasts are not so scary, especially the Dragon tamed by Saint Martha, although the Minotaur is giving Theseus quite a fight as the Maids of Athens look on, frozen in fear. Two illustrations are rather more adult in theme, with both the Nymphs and Satyrs and the Centaurs featuring unclad but unrevealed female beauties. A very tame and visually striking Unicorn with his maiden could be mistaken for a medieval tapestry, were it not so art deco, And the Orc, taken from the famous Orlando story, is about to meet his end at the hands of Rogero on his flying Hippogryph, part lion, horse and eagle.The two series are- Enchanting Fairyland Lovers 1932Cinderella and Prince CharmingPrince Ahmed And Peri-BanuThe Goose GirlIvan and the Chestnut HorseThe Prince and the Sleeping BeautyTa-Khai and the Bird FengThe Princess And The Enchanted StagThe Fisherman and the Dragon King’s Daughter Beauty and the Beast 1937Maids of Athens and the MinotaurNymphs and SatyrsSaint Martha and the DragonThe Centaurs and the Lapithae WomenThe Maid and the UnicornThe HippogriffHanuman Bids Sita Farewell