Never, never land ...

It was just a coincidence. Cincinnati Ballet is performing "Peter Pan" this weekend, and while in the attic looking for books to serve as props in an exhibit, I found an edition of "Peter Pan" that I'd forgotten about.

It's the Whitman Publishing Company's oversized "Peter Pan Picture Book," published in 1931 and illustrated by Roy Best. Confirming my theory that all roads lead to Ohio, I discovered that Best was born in Waverly, Ohio, and, of course, attended art school in Cincinnati.

The book is falling apart, but even so, its pages are in good condition. The soft, enchanting illustrations of Tinker Bell and Peter are my favorites, even if Tink is a tad too pin-up for me. Little did I know, until I began researching Best, that he's best-known as a pin-up artist. Not racy pin-ups though, a bit more wholesome, girl-next-door.

The bright, cartoonish Captain Hook paintings don't appeal to me, so you won't see them here. Chances are that all the illustrations will find their way into the "Stuff I Can't Bear to Cut Up" files ...

Unabashed romanticism

There are times when I hate cutting a particular image. But there are few times when I'd like to save an entire book - this is one of those.

A stop at my favorite neighborhood used bookstore - Significant Books - turned up a copy of a luxurious 1888 edition of Keats poems. The book was no longer a book, it was a pile of papers that were badly foxed. I flipped through them quickly and decided that at $5 it was a steal, because the central images were salvageable.

I didn't really know what I had until it was whisked off to the studio. Snip. Snip. Snip. The worst parts of the large, velvety pages hit the floor. As I got deeper into it, I couldn't help but begin to read the poems and to look more closely at Low's classic Beaux-Arts illustrations.

Low began his artistic life in his teens as a sculptor and illustrator. When he was 20, he headed to Europe to study with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Carolus-Duran. He also spent summers with the Barbizon artists, whose focus was on nature and realism. 

After five years, Low returned to America, and began working as a muralist, illustrator, and decorative painter. He achieved some fame after illustrating an equally lavish edition of Keats' "Lamia" for Lippincott in 1885. That brought the publisher back to him three years later for "Odes."

I'm smitten and now on the lookout for good copies of each, to add to my library this time - not to my stash!