The Lost Art Of Heinrich Kley (Lost Art Books No. 5) (book review).
Oddly, you would have thought that that Dover Publications would have done a second volume of Heinrich Kley’s coloured work. Nope. For this you need to go to Picture This Press and their book, ‘The Lost Art Of Heinrich Kley’. This time, for Kley’s watercolour work with a splash of black and white illustrations. First, though, there are articles about Kley’s life and an examination of his art. Something I hadn’t known was that apart from Disney, comicbook artists Wallace Wood and John Buscema were also noted fans.
It is of particular note that Kley drew without laying out lines. Looking at some of his preliminary work, he does outline before filling, though, so probably laid the lines out in his head and adjusting feet and such as shown as he corrects details. There is no detail as to whether he applied a similar preparation or rubbed out lines for some of his painted work. With some of his pictures, he does appear to have just coloured his linework. The cover does look more purely like tidied art in comparison. There is one illustration showing he used white out to correct some work but that might not always be the rule.
At the turn of last century, the printing process was mostly with muted colours on lower grade paper and there is rarely an examination of whether artists knowing their work was going to be poorly reproduced would match to the limitations and colour options or trust the engravers to do the best they can.
Whatever, look up Heinrich Kley on Google and think, it’ll look better in a book.
GF Willmetts
June 2020
(pub: Picture This Press, 2012. 140 page illustrated softcover. Price: I pulled my copy for about £22.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-98292-767-0)
check out website: www.PictureThisPress.com
