Edmund Dulac (October 22, 1882 – May 25, 1953) was a French book illustrator. Born Edmond Dulac, in Toulouse, France, he began his career by studying law at the University of Toulouse. He also studied art, switching to it full time after he became bored with law, and having won prizes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He spent a very brief period at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1904 before moving to London.
In London, Dulac was given a commission to illustrate Jane Eyre. He then began an association with the Leicester Gallery and Hodder & Stoughton. The gallery commissioned paintings from Dulac which they sold, the rights to the paintings were purchased by Hodder & Stoughton, who used them as illustrations in illustrated books, publishing one book a year. Books produced under this arrangement by Dulac include Stories from The Arabian Nights in 1907, with 50 color images; an edition of William Shakespeare's The Tempest in 1908, with 40 color illustrations; The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1909, with 20 color images; The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales in 1910; Stories from Hans Christian Andersen in 1911; The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe in 1912, with 28 color images and many monotone illustrations; and Princess Badoura in 1913.
Dulac became a naturalized British Citizen on February 17, 1912. During World War I, he contributed to relief books, including King Albert's Book, Princess Mary's Gift Book, and, unusually, his own Edmund Dulac's Picture Book for the French Red Cross (1915) (including 20 color images). Hodder & Stoughton also published The Dreamer of Dreams (1915) (including 6 color images) - a work composed by the then Queen of Romania.
After the war, the not-deluxe edition illustrated book became a rarity and Dulac's career in this field was over. His last such books were Edmund Dulac's Fairy Book (1916), the Tanglewood Tales (1918) (including 14 color images) and the The Kingdom of the Pearl (1920). His career continued in other areas however, including newspaper caricatures (especially at The Outlook), portraiture, theatre costume and set design, bookplates, chocolate boxes, medals, and various graphics (especially for The Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate). He designed postage stamps for Great Britain, including the postage stamp issued to commemorate the Coronation of King George VI that was issued on 13 May 1937. He also produced illustrations for The American Weekly and Britain's Country Life. Country Life Limited (London) published Gods and Mortals in Love (1935) (including 9 color images) based on a number of the contributions made by Dulac to Country Life previously. The Daughter of the Stars (1939) was a further publication to benefit from Dulac's artwork - due to constraints related to the outbreak of World War II, that title included just 2 color images. He continued to produce books for the rest of his life, more so than any of his contemporaries, although these were less frequent and less lavish than during the Golden Age.
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