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Kay Nielsen. 1001 Nights

60Edition: Multilingual (English, French, German)Availability: In Stock

This stunning edition of Kay Nielsen’s illustrations for a world heritage classic, A Thousand and One Nights, highlights his unique, vivid imagery and features history, description, and essays on the making of this series. It also offers rarely-seen colorful artworks by Nielsen and the drawings he created for his original publication.


First published as a limited Collector’s Edition, now available in an unlimited edition

Hardcover12.6 x 12.6 in.3.56 lb144 pages
“More than a century later this book is as timeless as the Scheherazade story itself.”
LUXX
Kay Nielsen’s A Thousand and One Nights

Kay Nielsen’s A Thousand and One Nights

60

Visions of 1,001 Nights

The exquisite storybook of Kay Nielsen’s enchanting tale illustrations

In the late 1910s, in a Europe ravaged by World War I, Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen put the finishing touches on his illustrations of A Thousand and One Nights. The results are considered masterpieces of early 20th-century illustration: bursting with sumptuous colors of deep blues, reds, and gold leaf, and evoking all the magic of this legendary collection of Indo-Persian and Arabic folktales, compiled between the 8th and 13th centuries.

However, publishers retreated from Nielsen's project in the financially strapped postwar climate, and the publication never happened. A rising star, Nielsen moved on to other work. This world heritage classic's spectacular pen, ink, and watercolor images remained under lock and key for 40 years. Published just once in the 1970s, the illustrations were rescued from oblivion after Nielsen's death in 1957 and are now held by the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in two private collections.

This publication is a unique compilation of fine art prints and stunning illustrations reproduced directly from Nielsen's original watercolors—the only complete set of his extraordinary drawings to have survived. The book features descriptions of all of the images and three generously illustrated essays on the making of this series, the origin of Nielsen's unique imagery, and a history of the tales. In addition, it shows many unpublished or rarely seen artworks by Nielsen and intricate black-and-white drawings Nielsen created for the original publication.
The editor

Noel Daniel is a graduate of Princeton University and a former Fulbright Scholar to Berlin. Her TASCHEN publications include TATTOO 1730s-1950s, Kay Nielsen’s A Thousand and One Nights and East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Wintertime Tales, Magic, and The Circus.

Kay Nielsen. 1001 Nights
Hardcover32 x 32 cm1.62 kg144 pages

ISBN 978-3-8365-9563-6

Edition: Multilingual (English, French, German)
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