Another Really Old Old-School Artist

In my Really Old School Artist post from back in November, I discussed the work of John D. Batten and how I discovered Batten's work while trolling Wikimedia Commons to find images for use in the layout of The System. Such is also the case with the work of Willy Pogany.

Hungarian-born Pogany (1882-1955) made his way to America via Paris and London. Being in those locales (Paris and London) at that time (just after the turn of the century), it seems only natural that Art Nouveau found it's influence on Pogany, especially since much of the most interesting work in book publishing at the time was coming out of the Private Press Movement. Another great thing about the Private Press Movement (from the RPGer's perspective) is that much of the subject matter was fantastic in nature, including mythology, fairy and folk tales, and the beginnings of what we now know as fantasy literature. (See my post How the Industrial Revolution Inspired the Original Fantasy Game: A Brief Timeline for a bit more info about this.)

With Pogany, like Batten, the works they created do not feel out-of-place at all in the context of an OSR milieu. In looking at the work below, I'm struck by the resemblance of the work of both Russ Nicholson and Jeff Dee. I'm not claiming the similarities are intentional. As an artist, I know that techniques are techniques, and personal style is something that is truly amalgamated from the artists who've inspired and influenced you. (See my Favorite Artists post for a bit more info on this one.)

So, without further ado, please enjoy these selections from The Children of Odin and The Adventure of Odysseus, both by Padraic Colum (The Macmillan Company), as well one other image that I can't quite source (the one of the beggar that looks like a Russ Nicholson drawing.)

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EDITOR'S CORRECTION:
In my original version of this post,
the image at left was credited to
Willy Pogany but, in fact, it was done
by Lorenz Frølich.