Kay Nielsen

Whether or not you know it, you’ve probably seen Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen’s work before.

Flowers and Flames, 1921 by Kay Nielsen - Buy Flowers and Flames, 1921 Paper Art Print - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Custom Prints and Framing

Kay Nielsen, The Chasm, from The Book Of Death, 1911

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 […]

Zephyr from "Felicia and the Pot of Pinks," In Powder and Crinoline, 1913. Scan from East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales From the North, illustrated by Danish artist Kay Nielsen (1886-1957), 1914. Taschen 2015 edition.

Kay Nielsen is among the greatest artists associated with what is known as "The Golden Age of Illustration" and his works are associated with classic fairy tales, in addition to myths and fables.

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

"She saw the Lindworm for the first time as he came in and stood by her side." From "Prince Lindworm," from East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales From the North, illustrated by Danish artist Kay Nielsen (1886-1957), 1914. Taschen 2015 edition.

"Tales from the Enchanted Isles" by Ethel May Gate and illustrations by Dorothy P. Lathrop. Copyright 1926 by Yale University Press.