Illustrations by Rudolf Mates for A Forest Story by Josef Kozisek (Czechoslovakia, 1929):
The mole’s toothache dream
from the illustrated endpapers
Rudolf Mates (1881 – 1966) was a school teacher and illustrator. A Forest Story and its close companion The Magic Flutes (1929, Longmans) appear to have been well-received in the US. (I’m not sure of the exact dates of the Czech editions.) There’s an overview of Mates’ life and work in Czech [Google English trans.].
This book’s intense lithographed colors successfully mimic the appearance of pochoir handcoloring. My scans can’t do justice to the super-saturated colors achieved by the Czech printers. (My scans also do not show the decorative, full-bleed border on each page.)
Coming soon: The Magic Flutes.
Also see: The Cock and the Hen
