Monday, February 25, 2008

Gustaf Tenggren

Gustaf Adolf Tenggren (1896 - 1970) was a Swedish illustrator known for his Arthur Rackham-influenced fairy-tale style. Tenggren was a chief illustrator for Disney in the late 1930s, his greatest work being designing the old-world style for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and developing the dwarfs personalities. He also worked significantly on Bambi and Pinocchio. He then illustrated many children's books including several Little Golden Books like The Poky Little Puppy and Tawny Scrawny Lion. Sadly, Gustaf destroyed much of his early work and too little survives to this day.

Gustaf Tenggren (Wikipedia)
Some beautiful childrens' illustrations
Classical childrens' illustration (ASIFA)
Cute childrens' illustration (ASIFA)
More Tenggren illustration (ASIFA)
Illustrations for advertisements
The Talented Herr Tenggren (Tinselman)
Bio with illustrations

2 comments:

pixzlee said...

Thanks for the refreshing inspiration. I think that my love of art started with my love of picture books in the library as a very young child. I particularly remember some of these illustrations but others must have been ingrained in my subconscious. A prime example of that is that I recently did a drawing of Rupuntzel that echoes Tenggren's same illustration without knowingly referencing it.

Katherine S said...

thanks for that! I didn't know him, i like that kinda illustrations.