I previously wrote about the illustrations that have graced the Alice books over the years, with a special emphasis on the Surrealists (see my post Illustrating Alice). However this generated such a large response from readers that I soon realised that I had barely scratched the surface, as Alice has been published in thousands of editions in over a hundred languages, with a myriad of differing artistic interpretations worldwide and therefore a follow up post was very much in order.
Several Australian readers mentioned the paintings of Charles Blackman featuring Alice which certainly possess intensity and verve. Also noted was another artist from the Antipodes, (or the Antipathies as Alice called the Land Down Under during her descent down the rabbit hole), Donna Leslie and her brilliant illustrations for the bilingual adaption Alitji In The Dreamtime in Pitjantjatjara and Australian English, that drew heavily on her Aboriginal artistic heritage.
Perhaps unsurprisingly Alice is somewhat of a cultural icon in Japan and Yayoi Kusami, one of Japan’s leading contemporary artists illustrated the recent Penguin Classic edition with over a hundred drawings in her characteristic hallucinogenic dot style.
Sir Peter Blake, the leading exponent of Pop Art in the U.K illustrated the Alice books and also painted watercolours of certain celebrated scenes in a rather groovy, psychedelic style (see header image and my post Glory).
The noted Bulgarian illustrator Iassen Ghiuselev drawings for the Alice books combine a Central European folkloric sensibility with paradoxical perspectives reminiscent of Escher.
Finally featured are two American artists, Barry Moser whose sharp, dark engravings illustrated the Pennyroyal edition of 1982 and the vibrant semi-abstract paintings of Deloss McGraw.
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