Hansel and Gretel illustrated by Kay Nielsen

All the images on this hub come from the book "Hansel and Gretel and other stories by the brothers Grimm and illustrated by Kay Nielsen" published in 1921 and now in the public domain.

Although he died in poverty, Kay Nielsen is now considered one of the three great illustrators of the British Golden Age of illustration, together with Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham. The golden age of illustration started toward the end of the 19th century when improvement in printing techniques allowed a more detailed reproduction of coloured drawings and painting. Beautifully illustrated books were then produced to be sold as expensive presents or to be kept in middle class families' living rooms. The Golden Age of Illustration more or less ended with the end of the First World War and the end of the Victorian way of life.

Like Edmund Dulac who was French, Kay Nielsen was not British, he was born in Denmark in 1886 in a family of artists. After studying arts in Paris he moved to England where he started to receive commissions for illustration work both for books and magazines.

What made his work stand out was how it was influenced by Japanese art, Aubrey Beardsley and Art Nouveau, his illustrations although used in classic children books like Hansel and Gretel and Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales are just as likely to appeal to adults. With the First World War his work dried out he went to Denmark where he worked on illustrations for a new edition of the Arabian Nights. Unfortunately this book was not published, at least not during Nielsen's lifetime as it finally came out in print in 2005. While he was in Denmark he also worked in treatre production until in 1936 moved to California and applied for a job at the Walt Disney Productions where he worked for the next four years and his work was also included in "Night on  Bald Mountain" in Fantasia.

He then left Walt Disney Productions and spent in final years until his death in 1957 in poverty, in recent years his work has attracted the attention it so much deserves.

The Brothers Grimm collected folk tales by listening to people and transcribing the stories they knew in Germany in the early years of the 19th century. Some of the msot famous stories collected by them are Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, The Musicians of Bremen and many others.