Allons Vite.
Paris: Flammarion, Les Albums du Père Castor, 1933. First edition of this scarce French children's book,with vibrant color illustrations. OCLC records only three physical copies: Oak Spring Garden Library in Virginia and the Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media. With nine full-page illustrations and three half-page illustrations all printed in vivid color. Illustrations depict modes of transportation (ship, elephant, canoe, bus, etc.) in simple color-block shapes. Without the signature of colored tissue paper (copies are rarely found with the signature). Still a very good, bright copy of this art education book in the original glassine just jacket. Flexible green card wrappers printed in color. Some toning and minor offsetting inside. L. Quarto. [24] pp. Item #17871
Children are instructed to cut out copies of the basic shapes that comprise the illustrations. These shapes could then be glued down on a separate piece of paper to assemble scenes. Nathalie Tchelpanova Parain (1897 - 1958) was a Kyiv-born illustrator who drew on Constructivist aesthetics to illustrate fifteen other similar albums for publisher and children’s writer Paul Faucher’s Les Albums du Père Castor series. These albums were named after le castor, the beaver, because children were encouraged to build their artwork and think of it as a three-dimensional construction project.
Rose Brua Chelli (1895 – 1982) was a translator, playwright, novelist, and children’s author born in Algeria during the French colonial period. She collaborated with Parain to write the text for all the Père Castor albums. See Princeton University Cotsen Children’s Library online exhibit of Père Castor albums. Les Petits Français Illustrés 1860 - 1940, p. 281. See also Lemmens, A. and S. Stommels. Russian Artists and the Children’s Book 1890 – 1992.
Price: $750.00