Emma Joy Dana Collection of Artuš Scheiner

Collection

Call Number: AOB 30

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of 24 illustrations by the Czech artist Artuš Scheiner. The works consist primarily of gouache paintings for children's literature published in the early-twentieth century. Particularly well represented in this collection are illustrations for Václav Říha’s fairytales, including Lada (1918), Maruška (1918), Dvě Maričky (1920), Mariana (1920), Růženka (1920), Berona (1921), and Lidka (1921).

Dates

1914 - 1933

Creator

Dana, Emma Joy (Collector)

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Arrangement

The illustrations are arranged by date of creation, as inferred from the publication date of the text in which each is reproduced. When multiple illustrations from the collection were made for the same text, these are included in a single folder in the order they appear within the published work.

Extent

0.25 Linear Feet (1 box) ; 15d x 3h x 15w

Language of Materials

Czech

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/arts.aob.0030

Additional Description

Overview

The collection consists of 24 illustrations by the Czech artist Artuš Scheiner.

Biographical / Historical

Artuš Scheiner (1863-1938) was born October 28, 1863, in Benešov in former Bohemia.¹ He is best known for his children’s book illustrations, though he did not begin creating art for this genre until later in life. His first children’s illustrations were published in Růženka a Bobeš by Václav Říha (pseudonym Václav Tille) in 1902. Scheiner worked extensively with Říha on a series of stories that center on and are titled after female heroines.² The author with whom Scheiner published the most works was Marta Voleská. The two created over sixty booklets to advertise the detergent company Firma Otta. In addition, Scheiner and Voleská partnered on the Kulihrášek and Tintilin series. Both series follow the adventures of a young boy in a bright red cap and are graphically distinguished by their inclusion of multiple images on a single page. Scheiner’s paintings also accompany the stories of Božena Němcová, Julius Zeyer, Karel Jaromir Erben, and Hans Christian Andersen.

Beyond his children’s illustrations, Scheiner made many other artistic contributions. During the late-nineteenth century his art was published primarily in magazines and in German-language novels. He first published his work in 1887 in Světozor, a weekly magazine published in Prague. From 1891 to 1906 he contributed regularly to Lustige Blätter, a weekly satirical magazine published in Berlin.³ Likely because the artist’s older brother, Josef, was the President of the Czechoslovakian Sokol Association, Artuš also made drawings for gymnastics exercise books.⁴ In the 1890s Artuš designed a marionette theater for his brother’s family that was used for weekly performances until 1907.⁵ The designs were presented in Loutkové divadlo Artuše Scheinera ("The Marionette Theatre of Artuš Scheiner") published by Josef R. Vilímek.

Artuš Scheiner died December 20, 1938, at the age of seventy five.

¹Jana Bačovská, “Pohádková Typologie v Secesní Knižní Ilustraci,” (Master’s Thesis, Masaryk University, 2008), 189. ²These stories have since been grouped as “Říhovy Pohádky” or “Pohádky o Princeznách.” ³Bačovská, 189. ⁴For instance, Bílé kroužky : Cvičení pro dorostenky [pro] XI. všesokolský slet v Praze 1948. ⁵Jaroslav Blecha, “The History and Scenographic Influence of Czech Family Marionette Theatres,” Theatralia, 14 no. 1 (2011): 128-129.