Wanda Gág

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Wanda Gág working on a lithographic stone, ca.1927

Wanda Hazel Gág (born March 11, 1893 in New Ulm , Minnesota , † June 27, 1946 in New York City ) was an American artist, author , translator and illustrator . She became known for the children's book Millions of Cats , which she wrote and illustrated , which won the Newbery Honor Award and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award . It is the oldest American picture book still in print. Her book The ABC Bunny also received a Newbery Honor Award, and her books Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Nothing at All received the Caldecott Honor Award . In 1940 her revised diary entries from 1908 to 1917, which were published under the title Growing Pains , received widespread attention .

Life

Wanda grew up as the eldest of seven children of Elisabeth Biebl Gag and the painter and photographer Anton Gag in a German-speaking immigrant community in New Ulm. Wanda, her five sisters and brother received artistic support from their parents; they sang, drew or wrote stories and poems. The story of Robby Bobby in Mother Goose Land , illustrated by Wanda Gág in her youth, was published by The Minneapolis Journal (now the Star Tribune ) in its young reader supplement, Junior Journal . When Wanda was 15, her father died of tuberculosis. His last words to her were: "What Papa couldn't do, Wanda just has to finish." After Anton Gag's death, the family had to rely on government support, but instead of looking for permanent employment, Wanda continued to visit She attended New Ulm High School until she graduated in June 1912, while she looked after her younger siblings and contributed to the family's livelihood by selling pictures, drawings, texts and postcards. She then taught at a school in Springfield from November 1912 to June 1913 , but was still determined to become an artist.

education

From 1913 to 1914 she attended the Saint Paul School of Art thanks to a scholarship and from 1914 to 1917 the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) with the financial support of the patron and art collector Herschel V. Jones. There she made the acquaintance of the lithographer Adolf Dehn, with whom she had a brief relationship and with whom she had a lifelong friendship. When her mother died in 1917, she took her siblings into her home. Supported by a scholarship, she studied from 1917 in Manhattan at the Art Students League of New York and settled in Greenwich Village . During her studies, she took courses and lectures in composition , etching and advertising illustration.

Artistic work

Her first commissioned work was the illustration by Jean Sherwood Rankin's Mechanics of Written English in 1917. From 1919 she was able to earn a living as a full-time illustrator. It was around this time that she began to write her last name with an accent mark to emphasize correct pronunciation.

In 1921 she became a partner in the company "Happiwork Story Boxes", which sold containers with stories printed on the pages, and Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts published one of her illustrations. In 1923 Gág had her first solo exhibition at the New York Public Library . She pushed her art projects forward, published the magazine Folio together with the artist William Gropper , which only appeared in one edition. Her solo exhibition at New York's Weyhe Gallery in 1926 led to her recognition as "one of America's most promising young artists and graphic designers" and also marked the beginning of her lifelong working relationship with her manager, Carl Zigrosser. In the following years, Gág created numerous lithographs, woodcuts, watercolors and drawings.

Her article These Modern Women: A Hotbed of Feminists , printed in The Nation in 1927 , drew the attention of Alfred Stieglitz and prompted Egmont Arens to write: “Be more explicit about your relationships with men. The way you solved that problem seems to me to be the most illuminating part of your career. You have done what all the other 'modern women' are still talking about. ”Gág illustrated the cover of the March 1927 issue of The New Masses magazine . Her illustrated story, Bunny's Easter Egg , was published in children 's magazine John Martin's Book in 1927. Her work was recognized internationally, as was her inclusion in the American Institute of Graphic Arts' Fifty Prints of the Year in 1928, 1929, 1931, 1932, 1936, 1937, and 1938. Gág's work has been exhibited frequently in New York, such as 1939 in the Art in Our Time exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and during her participation in the 1939 New York World's Fair American Art Today .

Children's books

Gág's work interested Ernestine Evans, head of the newly created department for children's books at Coward-McCann. Evans was dissatisfied with the usual children's books on the market and was looking for new authors and artists who could implement their idea of ​​realistic, lifelike and less idealizing books. Gág turned down the suggestion to re-illustrate an older book, but accepted the offer to illustrate one of her own stories. Millions of Cats was published in 1928 and won the Newbery Honor Award, a rarely given award for a picture book. Gág carefully monitored the production of the book. For a second edition she redrew lost illustrations because she was dissatisfied with the reprint based on bad copies.

There was a movement against fairy tales among educators of the time. Some of them vilified fairy tales as they preferred realistic literature for children. Gág contradicted this: "I know I would have felt bitterly betrayed if I had been deprived of all these fairytale traditions as a child." To promote the popularity of these stories, she published Tales from Grimm in 1936 . Two years later she translated and illustrated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in response to the "downplayed, sterile and sentimental" Disney film version. Her essay I Like Fairy Tales was printed in the March 1939 issue of The Horn Book Magazine . Nothing at All became the Caldecott Honor book in 1942. More Tales from Grimm was published posthumously in 1947.

family

Gág loved the country life, so she spent the summers in various locations in rural New England, New York, and Connecticut drawing in the early 1920s. She rented a three acre farm called "Tumble Timbers" in Glen Gardner, New Jersey , from 1925 to 1930 until she acquired a larger farm ("All Creation") in Milford, Hunterdon County , New Jersey in 1931 . She went on to support some of her adult siblings, some of whom lived with her temporarily. Wanda's brother Howard Gág produced the ornate manuscripts for the illustrations in her picture books, and Wanda also encouraged her sister Flavia Gág to write children's books. On August 27, 1943, Gág married her long-time partner and manager Earle Humphrey, with whom she had lived since 1930. Gág developed lung cancer and died on June 27, 1946 in New York City. After the cremation, the ashes were scattered around her “All Creation” farm.

Honors

Wanda Gág House , 2008

The Horn Book Magazine honored Gág in 1947 with a long article about her work.

Gág's correspondence is in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota , the New York Public Library , the University of Pennsylvania , the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts . Her prints, drawings, illustrations and watercolors can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Art , the British Museum , and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, as well as in numerous museums worldwide.

After the restoration, the house where she was born in New Ulm will be run as the Wanda Gág House Museum and information center offering tours and educational programs. Posthumously, she was awarded the annual Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota , Moorhead, in 1977 .

Works (selection)

as an author and illustrator

  • Batiking at Home: a Handbook for Beginners . Coward McCann, 1926
  • Millions of Cats . Coward McCann, 1928
  • The Funny Thing . Coward McCann, 1929
  • Snippy and Snappy . Coward McCann, 1931
  • Wanda Gág's Storybook (contains Millions of Cats, The Funny Thing, Snippy and Snappy). Coward McCann, 1932
  • The ABC Bunny . Coward McCann, 1933
  • Gone is Gone; or, the Story of a Man Who Wanted to Do Housework . Coward McCann, 1935
  • Growing Pains: Diaries and Drawings for the Years 1908-1917 . Coward McCann, 1940
  • Nothing At All . Coward McCann, 1941

as a translator and illustrator

  • Tales from Grimm . Coward McCann, 1936
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . Coward McCann, 1938
  • Three Gay Tales from Grimm . Coward McCann, 1943
  • More Tales from Grimm . Coward McCann, 1947

as an illustrator

  • The Oak by the Waters of Rowan . Spencer Kellogg Jr, Aries Press, New York, 1927
  • The Day of Doom . Michael Wigglesworth , Spiral Press, 1929

as translator

  • The Six Swans . Illustrated by Margot Tomes, Coward, Mccann & Geoghegan, 1974
  • Wanda Gág's Jorinda and Joringel . Illustrated by Margot Tomes, Putnam, 1978
  • Wanda Gag's the Sorcerer's Apprentice . Illustrated by Margot Tomes, Putnam, 1979
  • Wanda Gag's The Earth Gnome . Illustrated by Margot Tomes, Putnam, 1985

Selected prints (selection)

  • Pipe and Flowers, 1926
  • Spring in the Garden, 1927
  • Spinning Wheel, 1927
  • Evening, 1928
  • Gourds at Tumble Timbers, ca.1928
  • Kitchen Corner, ca.1929
  • Backyard Corner, 1930
  • Lantern and Fireplace, 1931-32
  • The Forge, 1932
  • Airtight Stove, 1933
  • Interior, 1935
  • Winter Garden, 1936
  • Fairy Story, 1937
  • Macy's Stairway, 1940-41
  • Barnes At Glen Gardner, 1941-43
  • Whodunit, 1944

literature

Web links

Commons : Wanda Gág  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richland County Public Library: Millions of Cats .
  2. ↑ Frances Smyth: Testament of Faith. Growing Pains, by Wanda Gag . The Saturday Review, Oct. 5, 1940, p. 12
  3. ^ Minnesota Historical Society: Wanda Gág: Illustrator & Author . Retrieved February 2, 2015
  4. ↑ Audur H. Winnan: Wanda Gág . Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993, p. 2
  5. ^ Richard W. Cox: Minnesota History, Fall, 1974, p. 250
  6. ^ Wanda Gág: Growing Pains . Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984, pp. Xxxi
  7. ↑ Audur H. Winnan: Wanda Gág . Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993, p. 89
  8. ^ Wanda Gág House Association: Vita Wanda Gág . Retrieved March 11, 2015
  9. ^ Wanda Gág: Growing Pains . Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984, p. 314
  10. ^ Wanda Gág: Growing Pains . Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984, p. 459
  11. ↑ Laura M. Gabrielsen: Wanda Hazel Gág, 1893-1946 . In: Joan N. Burstyn: Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women . Syracuse University Press, 1997, p. 293
  12. ^ Wanda Gág: Growing Pains . Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984, p. 466
  13. ^ Karen Nelson Hoyle: Wanda Gág, a Life of Art and Stories . University of Minnesota Press, 2009, pp. 8-10.
  14. ^ Karen Nelson Hoyle: Wanda Gág, a Life of Art and Stories . University of Minnesota Press, 2009, pp. 10-13.
  15. ↑ Harold A. Loeb, New York, 1921, Vol. II, No. 2
  16. ↑ Audur H. Winnan: Wanda Gág . Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993, p. 13
  17. ^ Karen Nelson Hoyle: Wanda Gág, a Life of Art and Stories . University of Minnesota Press, 2009, p. 13
  18. ↑ Julie L'Enfant: The Gág Family . Afton Historical Society Press, 2002, p. 123
  19. ↑ The New Yorker: November 13, 1926, p. 90
  20. ↑ Audur H. Winnan: Wanda Gág . Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993, pp. 36, 71
  21. ↑ Julie L'Enfant: The Gág Family . Afton Historical Society Press, 2002, p. 130
  22. ^ Andrew Hemingway: Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement 1926-1956 . Yale University Press, 2002
  23. ↑ John Martin's House: New York, Vol.XXXV, Issue No. 4
  24. ↑ Audur H. Winnan: Wanda Gág . Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993, pp. 72-76.
  25. ↑ Julie L'Enfant: The Gág Family . Afton Historical Society Press, 2002, p. 156
  26. ^ John Cech (Ed.): Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900-1960 . Gale Research, 1983, Vol. 22, p. 184
  27. ^ Association for Library Service to Children: Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922-Present . Retrieved March 11, 2015
  28. ^ John Cech (Ed.): Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900-1960 . Gale Research, 1983, Vol. 22, p. 185
  29. ^ Karen Nelson Hoyle: Wanda Gág, a Life of Art and Stories . University of Minnesota Press, 2009, p. 59
  30. ^ John Cech (Ed.): Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900-1960 . Gale Research, 1983, Vol. 22, p. 187
  31. ^ Anita Silvey: The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators . Houghton Mifflin, 2002, p. 171
  32. ^ Karen Nelson Hoyle: Wanda Gág, a Life of Art and Stories . University of Minnesota Press, 2009, pp. 10-13.
  33. ↑ Audur H. Winnan: Wanda Gág . Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993, pp. 71-73.
  34. ^ University of Southern Mississippi: Flavia Gág Papers . Retrieved March 11, 2015
  35. ^ New Ulm Journal, July 29, 2010
  36. ↑ Audur H. Winnan: Wanda Gág . Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993, p. 61
  37. ↑ Joan N. Burstyn (Ed.): Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women . Syracuse University Press, 1996, p. 294
  38. ↑ In Tribute to Wanda Gág . In: The Horn Book Magazine, Issue 23, No. 3, May – June 1947, pp. 137–224.
  39. ^ University of Minnesota: Wanda Gag Papers - Collection Index . Retrieved March 11, 2015
  40. ↑ Tracy Chevalier (Ed.): Twentieth-Century Children's Writers . St. James Press, 1989, p. 370
  41. ^ National Gallery of Art: Wanda Gág: Collection Results . Retrieved March 11, 2015
  42. ^ Wanda Gág House Association: Wanda Gág House, New Ulm . Retrieved March 11, 2015
  43. ^ University of Minnesota: Wanda Gag Papers - Collection Index . Retrieved March 11, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Gág, Wanda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gág, Wanda Hazel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH New Ulm (Minnesota) , USA
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1946
Place of death New York City