Tenggren goes comics

Here's another finding  from the vault of Kerlan Collections in Minneapolis: a comic strip by Gustaf Tenggren! It covers some thirty pages and I have a vague memory from seeing this in some old clipping from The New York World Magazine. Any information on the origin of this comic story is welcome!

Page 12 from an unidentified comic story by Gustaf Tenggren.
Kerlan collection of the University of Minnesota Libraries
with permissions from the Archives and Special Collections.

It's not a proposal or a dummy, since every page is thoroughly sketched and cleaned up in ink, although the text is left out for the paper to fill in. The cartoon is a fairy tale kind of story about a selfish king. It's probably made in the late twenties, when Tenggren had some other commissions for The New York World Sunday Magazine. It resembles the style in Mother Goose Book from 1928 or Seldom and the Golden Cheese form 1933. Just imagine what stories there might be, had he made more of these. 

A not so Merry Christmas at all

As is the case in many of Hans Christian Andersen's so called fairy tales, The Little Match Girl is a tragic story, not at all suitable for small children. The poor girl is forced by her parents to sell matches in the street a freezing Christmas Eve. Nobody buys from her but she doesn't dare top go home. To keep warm she lights one after of the matches and sees the loveliest sights, hallucinating from cold, until she freezes to death in a corner, while people are hasting by on their way home to their families. Now there's a nice goodnight tale for your toddler!

Little Match Girl, Grosset and Dunlap 1944

Anyway, in 1944 Gustaf Tenggren illustrated this story for Grosset and Dunlap. When I first saw this book, I was not surprised that the end was changed: the little girl doesn't die at all, she gets rescued and wakes up in a warm bed in a rich house where she could stay. Of course, that's natural; a commecial book company simply can't give children the brutal facts of cruel poverty.

The little match girl gets rescued and wakes up in a warm bed
with a caring old lady that wants her as her grandchild.

The very last image of the book where The Little Match Girl is lying
on a cushion, but still in her raggedy beggar's clothes. The painting is ambiguous;
is she really sleeping or is she in fact dead after all?

But I hadn't expected Gustaf Tenggren to produce such a lame ending, since he was a stern and realistic artist and with a deep respect towards the literature classics. I always suspected that Tenggren was unwillingly forced to change the ending; at least I hoped so.
That's why I was quite pleased when I browsed through the dummy for Little Match Girl in The Kerlan Collection - there it was, the real end illustration. Gustaf had meant to illustrate the actual story as it was, in all its sadness. But naturally, the drawing had been rejected. So here they are, both of the endings. You choose.

Gustaf's suggestion from the book dummy for the last image.
This is a dead Little Match Girl, no doubt about it; Gustaf has even written so in the text above.
The last picture in the actual book bears a certain similarity to this one.
Kerlan collection of the University of Minnesota Libraries
with permissions from the Archives and Special Collections.

Grimm's Fairy Tales illustration

An interesting Tenggren painting is sold at Bonhams, NY tomorrow Wednesday Dec 11.
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21029/lot/1309/
This is an alternative for one of the illustrations in the Grimm's Fairy Tales that was published first time in Sweden 1922 and in Denmark 1923. A later edition was published in Germany as Grimm's Märchenschatz, but with the same set of prints as in all editions.

Original Tenggren watercolor illustration, 1918-19

Tenggren worked on the total of thirty illustrations from 1918 - 1920 and actually delivered the last four of them after he had moved to the USA. Tenggren's original Grimm painting are very seldom to appear and this is a unique opportunity to acquire a spectacular Tenggren piece in his early fantasy style.

Print from Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Sven the Wise and Svea the Kind

Here's another wonderful example of the Tenggren treasures of Kerlan Collection: an original drawing from Sven the Wise and Svea the Kind. I wanted to show it in all it's misery, yellowed and spotted with age; let's call it patina.

Original drawing for Sven the Wise and Svea the Kind.
The Siren of the Woods is being tormented by the Vittra

The book was published in 1932 by Harper and Brothers. It is a compilation of Swedish folk fairy tales rewritten by Alicia O'reardon Overbeck, and contains some of the most outstanding illustrations by Gustaf Tenggren. 

One of the color plates. The Siren of the Woods is luring the young Lapland boy.

 There are two color plates and 14 line b-w drawings. This is Tenggren at his very best, with all the penmanship you see throughout his twenties and thirties. Too bad there's only one single illustration left in the collection, but it's a great one!

A great dame passed away

On Tuesday November 19, Diane Disney Miller sadly passed away at 79 years of age. She was the eldest and sole surviving daughter of Walt Disney. Lately she had been deeply occupied with the creation of The Disney Family Museum in San Fransisco.

Diane Disney Miller, 1933 - 2013

In November 17, 1956, Saturday Evening Post published the first in a series of articles by Diane Disney Miller, My dad Walt Disney. Being a former employee at Disney's studios, Gustaf Tenggren was asked to paint the cover.

Cover for The Saturday Evening Post, November 17 1956

The original painting is said to have been offered  by the Saturday Evening Post as a gift to Walt Disney, but it is not known if he accepted or not. Just recently, though, I heard that Diane Disney Miller had bought the painting for the newly built Family Museum. So it's where it belongs now. Alas, Diane Disney Miller will not be there to see it. As it happens, she passed away only two days later than the day and month of the publishing of this issue.

Gus goes Goose

In 1929 Gustaf Tenggren illustrated a compilation of Mother Goose for Houghton and Mifflin. It was meant to be a school book and contained a number of small educational tasks for the children to solve. The first version had a color front cover which was also used as a frontispiece, but the later editions had only plain B&W print.

Mother Goose book, Houghton and Mifflin 1929

This was the first of Gustaf's book that was paid by royalties, but certainly not the last one. The successful row of Golden Books were also made on a partial royalty basis and rendered a solid economic basis for the later part of his life.
After Gustaf Tenggren had left the Walt Disney Studios in 1939, he made a totally new version of the french classic. From earlier using delicate transparent water color washes, he turned to tempera colors which could be layered heavily and proved to stand over painting without bleeding.

The Tenggren Mother Goose, Little, Brown & Co 1940

The contrast was as clear as day and night and must have been shocking to the fans of Tenggren's old-style illustration style. But when The Tenggren Mother Goose was published in 1940, the critics were enthusiastic: "This is the best Mother Goose ever!", they claimed unanimously.
In Kerlan Collection there is yet another try-out cover design for the book. It is never published but seems to be made in the late1950ies.

Alternate Mother Goose cover, 1950ies.
Published with courtesy of Kerlan collection of
the University of Minnesota Libraries
with permissions from the Archives and Special Collections.

It's probably not made for Simon & Schuster's Golden Books, since Feodor Rojankovski already had made a Mother Goose for them. Possibly it was meant for a re-issue of The Tenggren Mother Goose but never realized.
The three covers with each some ten years between them describe the evolution of Tenggren's style through the years. It was made possible by his ability to adapt to the various designs of the current time, but never losing his draftsmanship which was deeply rooted in art history.

Anna Tenggren

Anna Tenggren, first wife of Gustaf Tenggren. She was born Halmstad, Sweden.
Her brother Rudolf Petersson,  Gustaf's fellow art student and best friend,
was to become a well known cartoonist.
In 1932 he started to draw the still published Swedish comic, 91:an Karlsson. 

Gustaf Tenggren married Anna Petersson in 1918 on her birthday October 3rd. She was the sister of his best friend and fellow art student, Rudolf Peterson. In july 1920 Gustaf and Anna went to USA from Copenhagen on the emigration ship Hellig Olaf. They settled in Cleveland, OH, where Gustaf had already two sisters. The year after, her brother Rudolf accompanied them, starting a career as a cartoonist for the Cleveland paper The Bystander. Gustaf and Anna had lived in Cleveland for some two years when Rudolf met Asta, a Norwegian girl. Her best friend was Mollie Froberg who were to become Gustaf Tenggren's second wife.

Clipping from Cleveland Press, 1930.
The portrait received 2:nd prize in the spring
exhibition at Cleveland Art Museum that year. 

Portrait of Anna Tenggren, painted by Elmer Brubeck in 1930.
Published with kind permission from Bradley Brubeck.

As Gustaf Tenggren moved to New York City along with Mollie and Anna in 1923, the relation to Anna faded and they eventually separated. Anna Tenggren went back to Cleveland and worked for Elroy J. Kulas, the founder of a large steel company.
In 1936 she went back to Sweden and in 1945 she married to Åke Brink with whom she spent the rest of her life. 

Anna with car and dogs in Cleveland, 1930's.