Once again: Marie Hubrecht. Are you tired of me talking about Marie Hubrecht yet? Because I’m not done. If you want more Hubrecht, check out my reviews of Verdwenen Werelden here, here and here, and our Verdwenen Werelden podcast episode here! This post is a direct companion to my last one, in which I detail the time I went to see the spectacular murals she made in the 1920s at the former Girls’ Lyceum in Amsterdam. These paintings have been…
A couple of years ago, we looked at the book The Last Dinosaur by Jim Murphy and illustrated by Mark Alan Weatherby. It was a piece of naturalist fiction from the late 80s that followed the adventures of a female Triceratops as the world around her was dying. It was a beautiful and odd little book, one that I remembered reading when I was young. Less famously, in 1992, Murphy and Weatherby reunited for another dinosaur adventure, this one not…
When looking at books from the years BT (Before T’internet), we must of course always bear in mind that decent reference material was rather difficult to come by, especially for your average jobbing illustrator without privileged access to museums and/or scientists. (And even then, the scientists sometimes just didn’t give a toss.) This explains the proliferation of Knight, Burian, and Zallinger clones – what else were the poor artists supposed to do, if not take inspiration from the greats? Nevertheless,…
We’re back with more German dinosaur cards from the Reichardt cocoa company! In parts one and two, we discussed two series of 1900s illustrations by one F. John. In the late 1910s, Reichardt once again hit the market with collectible cards themed to extinct animals. Incidentally, after Series 1 and Series 2, the third series was numbered Series 1a, because that’s what makes the most sense. The original featured artist, F. John, was, not to put too fine a point…
Hej allesammen! It’s hard to find proper illustrated mass-appeal dinosaur books from before the 1970s, when Zdeněk Burian brought Life Before Man into every European home. It’s always cause for minor celebration whenever something older than that shows up that isn’t Knight or Zallinger. So imagine my delight when I rediscovered this book in my very own archives when I moved house last year. Oh yes, I remember this one. This very, very old one. How old? It dates from…
How about a little more from the world of palaeontological philatelelely? Last time, we took a look at stamps from various countries including the UK, Poland, Cuba, and China, with the promise of more to come, because “we haven’t even talked about Tanzania yet.” Best get right to that, then. Although they date from 1988 and 1991, the artwork on these stamps borrows from(/outright copies) much earlier palaeoart, most obviously Burian. Most stamps simply name the animal, but the lovely…
Carrying on from last time! The woes of 2021 drove me to the occasional book shopping spree, and as a result I’ve got at least another year’s worth of VDA books on my shelf. If I recall, this book was a fortunate find on Dutch web shopping giant Bol punt com. I was unfamiliar to it but it turns out that a lot of you grew up with this one, so I hope you enjoy part two of this trip…
It’s time for more Vatagin! Last time I showed you some of the dinosaur-centric works of the old Russian master. There are still some dinosaurs left, but today I will cover mostly the otherprehistoricanimals in his portfolio. As I don’t have a way to date his works except very broadly, I will simply do so in the chronological order of the Earth itself. Vatagin’s most famous and prominent palaeontological works are those in the “History of Life on Earth” series…
After covering Konstantin Flyorov a few monts ago, I found there to be a lot of interest in vintage Russian palaeoart. There was a small but very interesting palaeoart scene in Soviet-era Moscow, linked to its tradition of animal and wildlife art, that is stylistically quite distinct from the western tradition. Today, I want to give some attention to the original Russian palaeoartist: Vasily Alekseyevic Vatagin (Василий Алексеевич Ватагин, 1883 – 1969). Vatagin was a world traveller, a keen student…
Funny story, this one. As a science educator, I visit primary schools all over the country, and I often can’t resist scanning their school libraries for dinosaur books. Most of the time, I run into these awful late-2000’s stock-CGI schlockfests, but last week, I hit paydirt. A beautifully illustrated German-made children’s book from the late 80s, well-worn by the tough love of so many children’s hands. As one of the teachers saw me gushing, she actually offered to give the…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.