Wanda Gág
Gág, Wanda (1893–1946), American translator and illustrator of folk tales by the Brothers Grimm, was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, when German was spoken by the majority of inhabitants. While an adult living in New York City, Connecticut, and later in New Jersey, Gág translated the familiar fairy tales from the Grimms' collection in part to refresh her knowledge of the language. Aspects of her popular picture book Millions of Cats (1928) such as plot and refrains were reminiscent of the folklore style developed by the Grimms. Encouraged by her editor, Gág then translated the Grimms' tales with the intention of publishing them. She chose to rewrite ‘freely’, using her own words in English, rather than making a literal translation. Gág always completed the texts before embarking on the illustrations. Her intention was to create an art product for adults as well as for children. Therefore, she developed ‘dummies’ or mock‐ups for each book and designed the double‐page spread of the book when opened. Only after completing studies in pencil did she draw the final pictures using an indian ink pen. Until she became ill, she always supervised the printer even for later editions. Therefore her books have strong black‐and‐white illustrations; only the book jacket and frontispiece were printed in full colour.
She selected 16 stories for Tales from Grimm (1936) and illustrated each with one or usually several small ink illustrations. Among them were ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Cat and Mouse Keep House’, and ‘The Fisherman and His Wife’. Out of consideration for the child reader, Gág avoided the more violent Grimm tales. The book is accessible in word choice to young readers, and the illustrations convey a sense of peasant life in the 19th century. Gone is Gone (1935) was Gág's reminiscence of a story she thought was German but could never verify, as the Norwegian source eluded her. This story about a capable woman who proposes that she and her complaining farmer husband exchange tasks for a day reveals how Gág saw herself as a woman. In the tale, the husband fails to cope with the feminine daily tasks of childcare, cooking, and house maintenance.
Urged by librarians and an editor to counteract the popular Disney movie and book version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Gág created an exclusive single title published in 1938. She included the stepmother's three temptations, in contrast to Disney's one with the apple. Gág retained the folk image of the dwarfs; she depicted them as clean and orderly. Several years later she selected three more Brothers Grimm tales published during the midst of World War II as Three Gay Tales (1943).
Finally, her collection of More Tales from Grimm (1947) with 32 stories was published posthumously. As explained in the foreword, Gág had completed the text in her usual careful style, but several of the illustrations appear crude, as they were unfinished owing to her prolonged illness and death from lung cancer. Some art from her first Grimm publication was reused.
Bibliography
- Hoyle, Karen Nelson, Wanda Gág (1994).
— Karen Nelson Hoyle
