page_title: Willy Pogany
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Willy Pogany / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Frontispiece art by Willy Pogány to the book The Wishing-Ring Man by Margaret Widdemer, Published by Henry Holt and Company, 1917
context_page_description: William Andrew Pogany was a prolific Hungarian illustrator of children's and other books. His contemporaries include C. Coles Phillips, Joseph Clement Coll, Edmund Dulac, Harvey Dunn, Walter Everett, Harry Rountree, Sarah Stilwell Weber, and N.C. Wyeth. He is best known for his pen and ink drawings of myths and fables. A large portion of Pogany's work is described as Art Nouveau. Pogany's artistic style is heavily fairy-tale orientated and often feature motifs of mythical animals such as nymphs and pixies. He paid great attention to botanical details. He used dreamy and warm pastel scenes with watercolors, oil paintings, and especially pen and ink. Painstakingly detailed and confident, Pogany's pen and ink pieces portray the true extent of his talent.
context_section_description: In London, he crafted his quartet of masterpieces: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1910), Tannhauser (1911), Parsifal (1912) and Lohengrin (1913). Each of these was designed completely by Pogany, from the covers and endpapers to the text written in pen and ink, pencil, wash, color and tipped-on plates.
  The Ancient Mariner, a large book 9.5" by 11.75". is recognized as his masterpiece. Each page has at least two colors, sometimes with gilt plate accompanied by intricate borders. The initials are elaborate, starting each page and with ornate capitals at the beginning of every line. The illuminated title page, 18 color plates, the second color through black-and-white plates, the flowing calligraphic text, and the pen-and-ink drawings throughout the pages make this a stand out among Pogany's works.
  The Rime's beauty is accentuated by its soft ivory paper and subtle lavender borders. The three gray stocks on Wagner's book add depth towards his presentation.
  In Lohengrin, Pogany set his soft color pencil drawings against the grays.
  In Tannhauser, Pogany used paper color for further additional dimension.
  From soft pastel pencil drawings to watercolor paintings and pen and ink, Pogany utilized a variety of media in his illustrations.
  Pogany's beautiful and bizarre illustrations for Padraic Colum's The King of Ireland's Son use brilliant color and startlingly modern styles of seeing to show the magical journey of the hero, his beloved Fedelma and the second hero Flann. A horse-headed giant has the great patient head of a Clydesdale plough horse; a girl bathes naked while the hero steals the swan skin that would allow her to transform and take flight, the young man leads a fine steed with Fedelma mounted on it as they are attacked by a cloud of crows – strange, dreamy, beautiful images.
  Pogany worked as an art director on several Hollywood films, including Fashions of 1934 and Dames. He began his involvement in motion picture set design in 1924 and worked in film until the end of the 1930s. He was commissioned by John Ringling, Ettenger, Reiner and WIlliam Randolph Hearst's Wyntoon Estate, painted for the Barrymore family, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Carole Lombard, Enrico Caruso, Miriam Hopkins, and many others.
  Pogany was awarded gold medals in Budapest and Leipzig Expo as well as the London Masonic Medal, and became a Fellow of the London Royal Society of Art. The New York Society of Architects gave him a silver medal for his mural in the August Heckscher's Children's Theatre showing Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Jack in the Beanstalk.  He won a gold medal in 1915 at the Panama Pacific Expo for his work The ValCares. and was also awarded the Hungarian Silver Blue Medal.
  In 1914, Pogany's illustrations appeared on the cover of Metropolitan Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Harper's Weekly, Hearst's Town and Country, Theatre Magazine and American Weekly. In 1917 to 1921, he worked for the Metropolitan Opera designing sketches, scenery and costumes. In 1918 he illustrated a children's retelling of Homer, The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy written by Padraic Colum.
caption: Illustration for the frontispiece of The Wishing-Ring Man by Margaret Widdemer (Holt, 1917)
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