Gustaf Tenggren

Tenggren, Gustaf (1896–1970), Swedish artist, who emigrated to America in 1922 and had a distinguished career as illustrator and animator. Before he left Sweden, however, he had already established a name for himself with his work for Bland Tomtar och Troll (Among Elves and Trolls), a Christmas annual for children, and he did drawings for a collection of fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. In America his work found quick recognition, and he provided the illustrations for a number of fairy‐tale projects such as D'Aulnoy's Fairy Tales (1923), ‘1925 Fairy Tale Calendar’ (Beck Engraving Co.), and Sven the Wise and Svea the Kind (1932), as well as some elegant drawings for Grimms Märchenschatz (1923) in Germany. Tenggren's illustrations, influenced by Arthur Rackham and Kay Nielsen were colourful, florid, and dramatic and always added a new dimension to the tales. In 1936 he went to work for Walt Disney and designed many of the scenes in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio. After World War II, Tenggren abandoned animation and published numerous fairy‐tale books such as Tenggren's Story Book (1946), Tenggren's The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs (1955), Snow White and Rose Red (1955), and Tenggren's Jack and the Beanstalk (1956), and he also provided drawings for many Little Golden Books, a popular and inexpensive series for children in the United States. But the work of this later period lacked the experimental flair of his early stunning work, for which he is still known today.

Bibliography

• Canemaker, John, Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists (1996).
• Swanson, Mary T., “‘From Swedish Fairy Tales to American Fantasy’” (Diss., University of Minnesota, 1986).

— Jack Zipes