A career between books and performance
Nielsen was born in Copenhagen in 1886 to parents active in the theatre. He studied in Paris before moving to London, where an exhibition led to his first major book commission. In Powder and Crinoline appeared in 1913, followed by East of the Sun and West of the Moon in 1914.
The First World War disrupted the illustrated-book market. Back in Denmark, he designed sets and costumes for theatre and ballet while continuing book projects. He later moved to California and contributed visual development to Disney’s Fantasia, including the Night on Bald Mountain sequence. Public murals followed, but his final years brought financial difficulty. He died in Los Angeles in 1957; later exhibitions have renewed attention to his original drawings and watercolours.
A journey arranged in colour and distance
The retained New York printing of East of the Sun and West of the Moon is undated. Its preface distinguishes Nielsen’s drawings from George Webbe Dasent’s English versions of tales collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. Each contributes a different part of the book’s imaginative world.
In Riding the White Bear, the traveller and pale animal occupy little of an immense blue landscape. Their smallness makes the journey appear both delicate and exposed. The North Wind picture replaces that stillness with streaming lines and curling water. Nielsen’s carefully placed figures, costumes and expanses of space connect these book illustrations with his theatrical practice. They select particular moments from stories whose dialogue, repetition and difficult choices continue beyond the frame.
