Edmund Dulac illustrator' biography
Book Illustrations
Arabian Nights to Sleeping Beauty

Edmund Dulac was French illustrator of English books. He was born in Toulouse, South of France in 1882. He studied law while he attended classes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, also in Toulouse.

After winning an award at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and being bored of law after two years, he then enrolled full-time and knew where his future endeavours lay.

He got a scholarship in Paris and soon after left for London in 1904 where he began a brilliant career.

He is most known for his colorful illustration of the Arabian Night in 1907, Shakespeare's Tempest (1908) and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1909.

Along with Arthur Rackham , they were both to become the more prominent illustrators of that time.

One of Dulac's first commissioned work was of the collected works of the Bronte Sisters for the publisher J.M.Dent's. As Rackham and Robinson, he also contributed to the Pall Mall Magazine.

The strongest difference we can find in Dulac's artwork, with other artists, is that he would have most of shapes in the illustrations made out color and not rely on any ink lining.

He was more of a painter and through Leicester Gallery, which recommended him and sold the reproduction rights to Hodder and Stoughton, he became an illustrator. He would produce his paintings and sell them after the publication of the books.

He would produce one book at a time and painted The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales in 1910, Stories from Hans Christian Andersen in 1911, or The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, 1912.

When he published Sinbad the Sailor and Other Stories From the Arabian Knights in 1914 he was able to introduce oriental motifs and far brighter colors into his style.

It was then that WorldWar1 happened and he contributed largely, as an example the Edmund Dulac's Picture Book for the French Red Cross the only one to be produced as a single artist.

He worked in many other subject matters such as a caricaturist for the weekly newspaper, The Outlook, he also did portraits, stamps for Britain, costume and set design for theatre and many designs for designs for medals.

Dulac carried on illustrating the remainder of his life, though they were less frequent, and died in 1953.