Posters

2007 “Aesop’s Fables Illustrated by John Hejduk.” Poster. 20” x 15”. NY: Rizzoli. Unknown source. I was first alerted to the existence of this book at a Georgetown University celebration while I was a guest lecturer there. Imagine my surprise that the art gallery bookstore had a fable not yet in our growing collection! The TH image chosen here is apt for the book in this immense poster. Is this the biggest poster in our collection? "Aesop's Fables" illustrates characters and objects from TMCM, LM, GGE, FG, FS, and TH. Simple, playful art graces this poster. The angry fox and the scurrying mice are perhaps the best characters here. See the 1988 book Aesop's Fables: Posters & Reproducible Pages based on this poster. "Fable Search" presents twelve morals associated with well known fables. To what fable does this poster's "Half a loaf is better than none" moral belong?

1995 Aesop’s Fables Poster. Melanie Cargill. 16” x 20”. Felix Rosenstiel’s Widow and Son, Limited. Printed in Great Britain. Unknown source. We have a framed copy of this large poster already in the collection. A central scene has many fable characters moving about, including frogs jumping on the sleeping hare. Eleven individual fables are described in one scene each around this central image. Surprises for me are “Two Frogs That Wanted Water” and “A Kingfisher.” This poster represents a good way to acclaim Aesop’s multi-faceted influence.

1988 Literature Posters. Monterey, CA: Evan Moor Corporation. $8.95 for the set of four, including "Greek Myths" and "Greek and Roman Names," in Council Bluffs, March, '91.

1939/80? “Parson Weem’s Fable.” Poster. 23” x 17.5”. Grant Wood. Courtesy Amon Carter Museum, Foret Worth. Baltimore: Lithographed by A. Hoen & Co. Unknown source. Though we are not really dealing with a fable here, the story fascinates me. My recollection is that Pastor Weems spun a story to glorify our first president. This image shows his father confronting young George with a cherry tree in his hand. George already looks the way he will look some decades hence. The curtain put into the scene suggests all sorts of interpretations. Pastor Weems points a finger just as Aesop did in the first illustrated editions of Aesop in the 1500’s. Weems in 1800 wrote the first biography of Washington immediately after his death. He was a parson and travelling bookseller. The web offers a comment “it is probable he would have accounted it excusable to tell any good story to the credit of his heroes."

2012 3 “Aesop’s Fables” posters by Mark Gonyea. 12” x 16”. Story Posters. $19 each from the artist on Etsy, August, ‘25. I was excited to learn that Mark Gonyea had done large prints or small posters of specific sections of his lovely more comprehensive poster above. He was good enough to see to the printing of one segment that he was not yet offering online.

2012 “Aesop’s Fables” poster by Mark Gonyea. Two copies. 12” x 16”. Story Posters. Purchased from the artist on Etsy, August, ‘18. Here is a fascinating approach to fables. The poster has eleven “blocks” of 3 x 3 images. Blocks have uniform blue, tan, and green backgrounds to let them be easily identified. Each block presents one fable through black-and-white images. A good example is the first, which pictures TH. By the third image, they are at the starting point. By the sixth, we have seen the hare racing and the tortoise plodding. The crucial seventh image shows the hare sitting perched against a tree. He awakens in the eighth, and the ninth shows the tortoise crossing the finish line. For another good presentation, follow DS in the lower left. The crucial middle image shows the bone falling. This is clever work!

2023 "The Fox and the Crow Fable" poster by TaliMooni. Vilnius Lithuania. 16½" x 23½". $18.94 through Etsy, Jan., '23. This is a splendid, dramatic piece of work! A special touch is the element perhaps not noticed at first: the two creatures exit right in the background, one with cheese and one without. Snout and beak get special handling here!

1998? "Aesop's Fables" by Walter Crane. Illustrations and text for twenty of Crane's "tiles" from The Baby's' Own Aesop, Engraved and Printed in Colours by Edman Evans, 1887. 24" x 36". 15120. Rohnert Park, CA: Pomegranate Communications, Inc. Designed by Lisa Reid. Printed in Korea. $12.95 from Peder Berge at Puddy Sales, North Brunswick, NJ, through Ebay, May, '01. One extra copy at the same time from the same source. The poster almost does justice to Crane's work, as my photograph certainly does not. The poster becomes somewhat overwhelming, but the individual tiles are lovely. Pomegranate did a set of boxed note cards at the same time.

1983 "Russian Folk Tales"(?) Set of ten oversized illustrations by E. Rachyov, with a Russian text. Various authors. Moscow: Malvish (?) Publishers. $19 at Fairy Tales & Dreams, DC, Dec., '91. This excellent illustrator (named Rachyeva there) is responsible for excellent books of Krilov's fables done in 1965 and 1983. Here we have tales by O. Kapeetsa, M. Boolatov, and A(leksei) Tolstoy. The tales seem to be: "The Fox and the Wolf"; "The Goat and the Wolf"; "The Cat, Ram, Goat, and Bear"; "The Bear and the Little Girl"; "The Fox, the Cat, and the Rooster" (see Harvest [1967/70], 123); "The Bear and the Man"; and on the covers "The Rooster, the Hare, and the Fox." Rachyov's style is distinctive and engaging.

1978 "Russian Folk Tales." Set of ten oversized illustrations by Veniamin Losin, with text. Various translators. 11½" x 16¼".Moscow: Malysh Publishers. $6.48 at The Book Center, SF, Jan., '91. #8 and #1 illustrate FC. Note that #8 pictures the first phase of the fable, while #1 pictures the second. Large, colorful folk art.