FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 8, 2012
Contact: Joe Procopio, joseph.procopio@lostartbooks.com, (240) 643-8714
Renowned artist Heinrich Kley's life and work celebrated in
new two-volume set debuting at Small Press Expo 2012
Lost Art Books series spotlights first U.S. collection of German master's work in 40 years
SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND—Picture This Press, a publishing house devoted to the graphic arts, will release two volumes on German cartoonist and illustrator Heinrich Kley as part of its ongoing series, Lost Art Books. Both books on Kley will debut simultaneously at this year's Small Press Expo on September 15-16 in Bethesda, Maryland. Although Kley has long been considered one of the world's great draftsman and a noted influence on Walt Disney's films, these are the first books of his work to appear in the United States in 40 years and are by far the most comprehensive representation to date, including a large number of his seldom-seen color works.
"There'll be a lot of excitement throughout the world once these books are available to the throng," said artist Michael Wm. Kaluta, who contributed the foreword to Volume One.
The Lost Art of Heinrich Kley Volumes One & Two collect over 450 drawings and paintings from a wide array of sources. Neither volume overlaps with past books on Kley, as nearly none of these drawings have been collected and reprinted since their original publication a century or more ago. Both volumes also provide groundbreaking scholarship on Kley's life and work by German art historian Alexander Kunkel—whose recent research is presented in these volumes for the first time in English—along with incisive appreciations by contemporary artists Michael Wm. Kaluta and Jesse Hamm.
Volume One focuses on Kley's ink drawings and reprints for the first time a substantial selection of his illustration work for children's books and adult genre fiction, a side of Kley's career previously unexplored in other collections. This volume also includes a wide sampling of Kley's cartoons and magazine work, with newly collected examples taken directly from a variety of rare sources such as Jugend, Simplicissimus, and the historic Der Orchideengarten (the world's first fantasy fiction magazine). In all, over 300 Kley illustrations and cartoons fill this first volume.
Volume Two also breaks new ground by being the first book to present a large number of Kley's paintings and preparatory drawings, some reproduced directly from the original art. These color works reveal a heretofore rarely glimpsed pool of talent and expand on the subject matter traditionally associated with the artist by including examples of his landscapes and industrial paintings. This volume's preparatory drawings are culled from the untapped Kley archive of the Library of Congress and show the artist working out concepts for book illustrations, reworking ink drawings into color paintings, and doodling for his own amusement. Approximately 150 drawings, many in color, appear in this volume.
Both of these volumes represent an important advancement to the English-language scholarship on Heinrich Kley, and the abundance of art within should delight his admirers, new and old alike. After debuting at the Small Press Expo, copies can be ordered directly from the publisher (www.LostArtBooks.com) and from Amazon.com.
About
Picture This Press is dedicated to broadening the appreciation and awareness of artists who work in the fields of illustration, cartooning, graphic arts, photography, and poster design. Picture This Press founder Joseph Procopio along with his co-publisher Ellen Levy have a combined 35 years of publishing experience as writers, managing editors, and publications directors for a variety of organizations.
Lost Art Books, the flagship series from Picture This Press, collects and preserves the works of illustrators and cartoonists from the first half of the 20th century. Too many of these artists have gone underappreciated for too long, with much of their work uncollected or unexamined for decades, if at all. The Lost Art Books series aims to preserve this cultural heritage by re-introducing these artists to new generations of working artists, historians, and admirers of things beautiful.
Links
Kley book trailer on YouTube: http://youtu.be/-DPdI1F5MoM
Home page: www.LostArtBooks.com
Facebook group: http://tiny.cc/2uw2i
Interview in the Washington City Paper: http://tiny.cc/47nl4
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