Kay Nielsen

If you’ve seen Fantasia, you are, whether you know it or not, familiar with the work of Kay Nielsen, a Danish artist whose illustrations collide light and dark in sublime, often disquieting quantities, with patterns of feverish detail abutting vast stretches of negative space. His work was used in Fantasia’s “Ave Maria” and “Night on […]

Microfiber polyester silky scarf with a slightly transparent effect. Vivid one side print, visible on the reverse. The Twelve Dancing Princesses vintage illustration by Kay Nielsen.

Kay Nielsen knew his way around a fantasy. The Danish illustrator was raised in a “tense atmosphere of art” (his words) during the Golden Era of Illustration – a time when folks one-upped each another with books bearing golden spines and marbled end papers; elaborately illustrated copies of Grimm's

Kay Nielsen

If you’ve seen Fantasia, you are, whether you know it or not, familiar with the work of Kay Nielsen, a Danish artist whose illustrations collide light and dark in sublime, often disquieting quantities, with patterns of feverish detail abutting vast stretches of negative space. His work was used in Fantasia’s “Ave Maria” and “Night on […]

Kay Nielsen knew his way around a fantasy. The Danish illustrator was raised in a “tense atmosphere of art” (his words) during the Golden Era of Illustration – a time when folks one-upped each another with books bearing golden spines and marbled end papers; elaborately illustrated copies of Grimm's

Kate Baylay Illustration: Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen, published by the Folio Society, 2013

Book of Norwegian fairytales and one of the finest creations to emerge from the golden age of illustration.