It's strange, how the world works. Last week I was browsing Flickr collections of vintage children's books, as one does :-) and came across an illustration that caught my eye by Jiri Trnka - whom I'd never heard of. I followed the link to an article about him - a Czech illustrator - and really loved his work. I made a mental note to look up some of the books.
The very next day, on a book scouting trip - I came across the above book - Tales from the Arabian Nights - published by Hamlyn in 1960, and illustrated by the very same Jiri Trnka. I have been buying and selling books for years, and this was the first book of his I had ever seen. Magic!
The blog article I read can be found here.
Anyway - I love the illustrations, the colours are rich but beautifully muted, as only books printed in that era can be - you know what I mean! Here are my favourites, click on them for larger scans.
You've really found a jewel there. He's one of my all time favorite illustrators, and these are some of his paintings that I like the most. If you're interested to see more of his work I recommend the book I bought myself when visiting Prague, written by an L.H. Augustine and published in 2002 I think. It's in czech, so I have no idea what it says, but it's choke full of images.
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