Unseen Helquist art donated to university special collection
Aug 20, 2017 3:26:05 GMT -5
Cafe SalMONAlla, Skelly Craig, and 3 more like this
Post by Dante on Aug 20, 2017 3:26:05 GMT -5
For fans of Mr. Helquist's work, this is absolutely fascinating. He's donated boxes of his old ASoUE artwork to Brigham Young University, from which he graduated in '93, and it's on display as one of their special collections. I advise everyone to read the full article below, which contains many more photographs and examples, as well as Helquist's thoughts on his process:
BYU grad, ‘Lemony Snicket’ artist Brett Helquist donates book’s sketches to BYU
There are some wonderful examples here showing how he developed a sense of the visual appearance of character and place, quite outside of mere concept sketches for the illustrations themselves. It's amusing seeing how some of them mutate; for instance, Olaf's license plate in the frontispiece illustration of TCC, "IH8ORFNS," is arguably foreshadowed in a sketch for the endpiece illustration of TAA, where it was instead "I❤ART". The photographs also show some artwork of his presented in a very different style that more resembles the apparent imitations used on some early Snicket merchandising.
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EDIT by Sherry Ann: Full Article Text:
Brett Helquist distinctly remembers his big “a-ha” moment. The illustrator, who graduated from Brigham Young University in 1993 and gained fame for his artwork in Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” books, traces it all back to a BYU class.
That class was History of Illustration. The professor, renowned Utah artist Robert Barrett. He showed the class a beautiful completed piece by American illustrator Howard Pyle (known for his work on “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.”). Then Barrett showed them Pyle’s initial sketch for that same painting.
“And it was just a literal scribble,” Helquist recalled in a recent phone interview. “It was kind of the great epiphany of my education. Because before I saw that, there was always this sense of, ‘How am I ever going to be that good?’ And then when you see where it came from, it doesn’t start as this magnificent thing of genius. It’s just a scribble, just a hint of an idea.”
These days, Helquist is passing on that same message to BYU students. The illustrator recently donated a vast collection of his initial “Unfortunate Events” sketches to the university’s Special Collections department. Those sketches are now on display at BYU’s library.
Helquist’s college epiphany is apparent in his sketches: He worked, and worked, then worked some more, ever-refining his many artistic ideas. Count Olaf, the series’ most iconic figure, gradually takes shape — his Victorian clothing, razor-sharp cheekbones and protruding beak of a nose becoming fully realized.
“I could see pictures in my head at the time, so I thought this would be an easy book to illustrate. Because there was plenty of good stuff in there,” he said. “As far as that goes, the whole series was just a joy to illustrate. It never felt like work, it always felt like fun. There was no shortage of images that I could come up with.”
That first “Unfortunate Events” book, “The Bad Beginning,” was first published in 1999. It was, believe it or not, Helquist’s very first book assignment. Books had always been his aim, but he said he got sidetracked after college, doing editorial illustrations for newspapers and magazines. Helquist signed on to illustrate the series’ first two books. That the series would become a generational hit spanning 13 books? Helquist never expected it.
“Well, I wish I were that smart, that I could’ve seen it coming, but I’m not,” he said with a laugh.
“I was just happy to be doing a book,” he continued. “But once I got it done … and they were published and hit the shelves, I could tell right away that they were getting attention. After trying for so long and not being able to land a book deal, suddenly books were just coming at me, and I was turning down more than I was taking for a little while.
“But that was still just on the side of getting more work. I had no idea of how popular it was going to become. That came years later. It was until toward the end of the series that any of us realized what we had.”
WORDS AND PICTURES, HAND IN HAND
Folks at BYU’s Special Collections department certainly weren’t expecting Helquist’s donation. Though Helquist said the idea originated with another BYU faculty member 10 years earlier, it was Helquist who eventually reached out and offered the sketches. Typically, it’s Special Collections who goes out and does the courting. A few BYU faculty visited Helquist at his home in Brooklyn, and came back with boxes of “Unfortunate Events” sketches.
“Any time someone reaches out to us wanting to donate, you kind of jump at the chance,” said Trevor Alvord, who works in Special Collections. “And we didn’t know what exactly he was willing to give us, or wanted to give us, so when we got there, it was quite a surprise to get this kind of material. Because this really is the backbone of his work, and that’s not something a lot of artists are necessarily willing to give up or give out.”
Rachel Wadham is an education and juvenile collections librarian at BYU. By every measure, she’s a Lemony Snicket expert, having read all the books multiple times, taught them in classes and engaged them in academic scholarship.
“I think a lot of people forget how significant the illustrations are for how we imagine a work,” Wadham explained. When we think of Sherlock Holmes, she added, an image immediately comes to mind: deerstalker cap, trench coat, pipe, etc. But the “Sherlock Holmes” author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, never actually wrote that Sherlock wore such a hat.
“The illustrator really creates a world for us in a really unique way, that is so iconic,” she continued.
Children’s books, she explained, are more than just the text or the illustration. It’s about those two elements working together, transcending their own limitations.
“Each children’s illustrator has their own unique style, and that is so true of Brett,” she said. “I mean, his work — even outside of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ — is so iconic. You can look at his work and say, ‘That’s Helquist art.’ But he’s able to use that unique style he has, and tailor it to the uniqueness of every book.”
Despite Helquist’s considerable success, he remains nonchalant. When he first read the manuscript for “The Bad Beginning,” he simply thought it was funny and entertaining. By his admission, creating a visual world is just simply what he does.
“It all just kind of happened organically as I worked out the pictures,” he said. “It probably looks like I thought more than I did — I was just kind of making it up, picture by picture. I got the manuscripts just a few months earlier than the readers got them, so I didn’t have any idea what was happening on the big arc of the series.”
Those books — and the visuals he created — have since leapt off the page and onto the screen: First, a “Series of Unfortunate Events” film in 2004 starring Jim Carrey, Jude Law and Meryl Streep, then a Netflix series that launched earlier this year starring Neil Patrick Harris.
“It’s a strange thing,” Helquist said of seeing his illustrations embodied. “But I think the people at Netflix did a really good job with the series. I was really pleased with what they did. It felt real true to what we were trying to do with the books.”
OPEN TO ALL
After explaining the sketches on display at the Special Collections entrance, Alvord and Wadham walked into an adjacent classroom. On a table were boxes of sketches and notes, all of varying size and detail, which comprise Helquist’s donation. It’s far less organized than the pieces they’ve selected for the large glass display cases.
“To me, this is what separates it,” Alvord said. “It’s no longer an art collection, it’s a research collection, which is incredibly scarce to find. Because it’s been so valuable for that, it’s already been embedded into about four or five different art classes. Which is really remarkable. That’s not something we normally do down here. But because it was so strong, we wanted to get it into students’ hands as soon as possible.”
Alvord said they’ll bring classes into the room, break them into four or five groups, and give each a box of Helquist’s sketches. Students will pick out their favorite pieces, and explain their reasoning to their classmates. And, as Alvord pointed out, this isn’t just for BYU students. It’s an open public collection, so anyone can come in and sift through it.
“Students need realize this is how you create greatness,” Alvord continued. “How you get to where Brett is at now is by doing so much of that background work. That’s what makes it so valuable to us.”
Helquist said he feels no preciousness with his work. For him, giving these sketches to BYU — and passing on those ideals he once learned in college — is basically a no-brainer.
“The donation isn’t in any way to show off. My intention is just to help people learn a little bit,” he said. “Art’s one of those funny things. So many people look at it as either you’ve got talent or you don’t. Anybody can do this. Don’t ever think you can’t.”
