Holly's Painter Pals

Check out Holly's artistic friends and associates:

Theodor Black
Tony Diterlizzi
Scott Fischer
Brian Froud
Wendy Froud
Jeph Jacques
Rebecca Guay
Ted Naifeh
Greg Spalenka
Mo Willems

Faerie art has been popular enough in recent years that it is possible to find a great variety of coffetable books on both specific artists and on certain art movements. This page is by no means a complete listing nor a very comprehensive one. Instead, it is meant as a place to begin looking at some great faery art and begin exploring the artists that created it.

For more thorough explorations, look at the fairy tale artists page on Heidi Anne Heiner's SurLaLune site and fairy art collection page on Christine Norstrand's Art Passions site. For further reading on the subject, look at Terri Windling's essay on the Victorian Fairy Painters on her Endicott Studio of Mythic Arts site. You might also want to take a look at a site called, plainly enough, fairyartists.com.

And for offscreen looking, Bud Plant's extensive catalog of illustrated books will probably have what you are looking for.

The Pre-Raphealites painters' work included some exquisite paintings of creatures from folklore, including mermaids, witches, and sirens. Sir Edward Byrne-Jones (1833-1898), John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) the brother of poet Christina Rossetti who wrote "Goblin Market," and Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896) are particularly notable for painting the fantastical.

During the same period there were several other notable faery painters not painting in the Pre-Raphealite tradition, including Richard Doyle (1824-1883), John Atkinson (1836-1893), and Richard Dadd (1819-1886).

A Naid by John William Waterhouse

The Chase of the White Mice by John Anster Fitzgerald

Only a few years later another group of painters came to prominence. Some still painted in the Pre-Raphealite style, such as Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914), Henry Maynell Rheam (1859-1920), and Frank Cadogan Cowper (1877-1958), who is considered to be the last of the pre-Raphealites.

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) was distinctly different, however. His faery illustrations may be the most well known of all the Victorian faery painters.

Other faery artists working during this period were John Anster Fitzgerald (1819-1906), who painted many opulent and strange faery works, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928).

Although many of the well-known faery painters were British, some of the most influencial were not. One of the earliest was the Swiss painter, Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).

The French painter, Edmund Dulac (1882-1953), Dutch painter, Kay Neilson (1886-1957), and Australian painter, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1888-1960), and the Swedish painter, John Baur (1882-1918) were all painting faeries and fairy tales in distinct and unique ways during the same period.

The 1880s to the 1920s is often called the "golden age" of illustration because of the influence the artists had on later generations.

The Little Mermaid by Edmund Dulac

Siegfried Kills Fafner by Arthur Rackham

Many of the modern faery artists are associated with the Mythic Arts Movement. Terri Windling's Endicott Studio Gallery page features essays on such notable modern faery artists as Brian Froud, Charles Vess, Thomas Canty and Alan Lee.

Suza Scalora is notable for her faery photography, which was published in a coffeetable book and on various young adult book covers including Block's I Was a Teenage Fairy.

White Wolf's Changeling: The Dreaming and WOTC's Magic: the Gathering collected a another small group of faery artists including Rebecca Guay and Tony Diterlizzi, who have gone on to illustrate faeries and fairy tales in books.

There are many, many more faery artists working today as well as more that have made significant contributions in the past. Undoubtedly, there will be still more to come in the future. And to me, that is a very good thing indeed.