Bohumil Stepan’s illustrations for Zelena Kobyla (The Green Mare) by Marcel Aymé, Prague, 1966:
Previously by this artist: Gulliver’s Travels to Prague
typically-killer Czech binding illustration
endpapers
back cover
Here’s another book by Bohumil Stepan (1913-85) from my ever-growing collection of Czech illustrated books. Friend-of-the-blog Josef left a comment on the “Gulliver” post: “Bohumil Štěpán was famous illustrator and caricaturist in the 1960s. After the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia and suppression of Prague Spring in 1968 he emigrated to Munich.” He gave a link to some works by Stepan on terry-posters.
Though I haven’t read anything by Marcel Aymé (who Simenon called “the greatest French writer of the day”), I somehow own four of his out-of-print books in English. One of these is the 1938 UK edition of The Green Mare (La Juvent verte, 1933), which has of course jumped to the top of my reading stack. The ’38 edition itself features excellent illustrations by Jean de Bosschere. (Because the black-and-white images appear to be water-colors, I suspect a lovely French edition exists.)
Aymé links: Pushkin Press page for Beautiful Image, enotes page, The Fantastic Logic of Marcel Aymé, Neglected Books on Across Paris and Other Stories.
Previously:
—Gulliver’s Travels to Prague
—The Strange World of Adolf Hoffmeister
—Round My Skull in Eighty Days (Hoffmeister’s illustrations for Verne)
—The First Men in the Moon (Hoffmeister’s illustrations for Wells)
—The Animals Are in Cages (Hoffmeister’s illustrations for Hoffmeister)
