GODS, MYTHS AND MORTALS-LOVE STORIES AND MYTHS THE ANCIENTS BELIEVED: EDMUND DULAC’S AMERICAN WEEKLY ILLUSTRATIONS
About
In 1923, “Edmund Dulac, the Distinguished English Artist,”as he was billed on the front covers, was contracted by the Hearst organization to paint watercolors for The American Weekly. The contract lasted nearly 30 years.From the 1920’s onward, Dulac’s income came primarily from his American Weekly illustrations. He painted 106 watercolors for thirteen different series from 1924 through 1951.
The two series featured here are the 1931 Love Stories the Ancients Believed In and the 1933 Myths the Ancients Believed. For ‘Love Stories’, Dulac painted the lovers at the moment of their highest drama, according to the interpretation from Ovid’s tales. They were republished in Good Housekeeping magazine and later as book by Hugh Williamson Ross titled Gods and Mortals in Love published by Country Life Books in 1935. It was so popular that Dulac quickly followed up with ‘Myths’. Both are painted in his high art deco tableau style, with the characters frozen in the act. This is the first republishing since then.
Love Stories the Ancients Believed In 1931
- Perseus and Andromeda
- Pan and Syrinx
- Psyche and Eros
- Circe and Ulysses
- Orpheus and Eurydice
- Europa and Zeus
- Selene and Endymion
- Hercules and Dejanira
- Persephone and Pluto
- Venus and Adonis Medea and Jason
- Iris and The God of Sleep
- Echo and Narcissus
- Hercules and Hebe
- Glaucus and Scylla
- Pomona and Vertumnus
- Diana and Actaeon
- Ariadne and Bacchus
- Flora and Zephyr