Saturday, November 17, 2007

Gordon Laite



Gordon Laite
American Illustrator
b. 1925
pictures from The Blue Book of Fairy Tales
© 1959 Western Publishing Company.

Despite my scans of a book that wasn't printed well--it has some color registration problems--the artwork of Gordon Laite shows through. He was a designer and illustrator of great skill. His girls are beautiful, his monsters grotesque. Many people who remember this 1959 Little Golden Book were impressed by the pipe-smoking hag in Rapunzel.

Click on pictures for full-size images.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are really incredible.

Unknown said...

beautiful!

nats_vintage said...

......these illustrations have stayed with me since I was a little girl. I found the witch scary as a little girl with her red eyes and her toe ring and pipe! The beast was so sad looking and I felt so sorry for him. The bird cages in the Beauty's room i just adored, the colour of the huge roses - just gorgeous.... I could go on!! I now have 3 copies of this book, because I found it so mesmerising and haunting - my 3 children love the drawings as much as I do - its really nice to see that you've scanned in the whole book for other people to admire and be inspired by the artists stunning work.

nats_vintage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amanda and SuperAmanda™ said...

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

These really are like long lost loved ones.

All my best to you and your wonderful blog.

-Super Amanda

Unknown said...

I had a golden book with the same illustrations by Gordon Laite. I think he is fantastic. The version I had contained 5 stories also illustrated by Gordon Laite. The other stories are Snow White and Rose Red, and Cinderella. They are worth trying to find. Thanks for the pictures.

LaLaVox (Mildred Loves You!) said...

I have the same Big Golden Book edition (with 5 fairy tales included in it) as druby38. A number of years ago I Googled Gordon Laite and wondered to myself why there was so little information about him on the net. I did a bit of research at the time and actually finally managed to contact his family. Apparently Mr. Laite died of cancer woefully early in his career. I have lost touch with his family again in the meantime, but would like to post a blog about him once I've unpacked all my boxes again (after renovating) and rediscovered the original book and the bits of information I was able to find out about him at the the time that I did my research. In the meantime, I am so happy to have discovered your posts about his work here. Thank you!!! - LaLaVox

sandy mccune said...

I worked with Gordon at Hallmark. He was one of a kind. His illustrations were very Victorian and his stylized roses were fantastic. He joined the Bahai religion and changed his name and went out West as a sort of missionary. He was a free spirit and very talented. He was very good at stylizing.