Ludwig Bemelmans by Laurie Britton-Newell

Miffy’s eyes and mouth, Bruna explained, always required particular attention. Hailed as a hero of the ‘clear line’, Bruna is recognized as one of the most important Dutch artists, celebrated in the tradition of Saenredam, Vermeer, and Mondrian. A vast spin-off industry includes television, stage musicals, and a multi-million-pound global merchandising business, and more than a hundred Miffy prints are held in the Rijksmuseum. By the time of Bruna’s death in 2017, his Miffy books had been translated into more than fifty languages. Over the next half-century, Nijntje, known in English as Miffy, would become one of the best-loved characters in the world.

Later that evening, Bruna would tell Sierk a bedtime story featuring Nijntje, a shortening of the Dutch word konijntje, meaning ‘little rabbit’. Bruna’s son Sierk, who had his own little woolen rabbit, was delighted, and Bruna was reminded of his own love of rabbits as a child. Sitting on a rug near the shore, the family spotted a rabbit skipping around in the sand dunes. His illustrations for the Madeline series are reminiscent of the work of Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Raoul Dufy, but possess a unique style that has resonated with readers around the world since the first book was published in 1939.Ī title in the new series, The Illustrators, which celebrates illustration as an art form, Ludwig Bemelmans offers a visually rich view into the life and work of this much-loved artist and writer, and includes exclusive sketches and photographs from the Bemelmans archive that have never been previously published.In the summer of 1955, illustrator Dick Bruna was on holiday with his young family at the Dutch seaside town of Egmond aan Zee. His illustrations were frequently featured on the cover of the New Yorker throughout the 1940s and 1950s.Īs an artist, Bemelmans documented life as it went on around him, all the while inventing stories and characters from his vivid imagination and lively personality. Recognized most widely as the creator and illustrator of the beloved children’s classic Madeline, Ludwig Bemelmans (1898–1962) also wrote and illustrated a number of other children’s books, novels, short stories, and travel books. An inaugural title in a new series showcasing the most significant illustrators of the modern era, this book explores the work of Ludwig Bemelmans.

Ludwig Bemelmans by Laurie Britton-Newell