The Ministry of Culture’s Prize for Illustrators awarded to Erik Hjorth Nielsen
By : Niels Jacobsen
With the unique scope of children’s book
illustrators we have in Denmark, there are plenty of candidates for the Ministry
of Culture’s Prize for Illustrators, but it was no surprise that this year it
went to Erik Hjorth Nielsen.
Wide-ranging
production
Erik Hjorth Nielsen was born in 1937, and
since the mid-1970s he has collaborated with numerous Danish authors and
illustrated over 100 books for children.
In
recent years he has also written the texts for some of these books. In
addition, he has designed posters with illustrations from Danish history,
legends and mythology. He trained as a painter and graphic artist at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. He is also a qualified teacher and has
worked for many years as an art teacher. Erik Hjorth Nielsen has exhibited
abroad, for example at the biennales in Bratislava and Barcelona, in Japan and
at the international exhibition in connection with the children’s bookfair in
Bologna. He received much notice here in 1986 for his exhibition of the
unorthodox trolls from his illustrations for Asbjørnsen and Moe’s Eventyr. The colours and characteristics
of the trolls create fabulously beautiful and timeless landscapes in fresh and
leafy-green tones.
Ingenious
The committee awarding the Ministry of
Culture’s Prize for Illustrators stated: “In recent years, with almost
explosive speed, Erik Hjorth Nielsen has developed his subject matter and
increased the dynamics in the individual illustrations, whether he be working
in black-and-white, pencil or chalk, or in colour. Sometimes his drawings are
so forceful that they burst out of the paper, now and then provocative and
often ingenious. … In many of his illustrations, Erik Hjorth Nielsen visualises
primordial forces, thereby addressing deeper layers of our emotions. He has
illustrated a good many books about the heroes and villains of the past, our
beautiful countryside, the ships, houses and animals of the time, and
especially the broad-chested, bearded men and the long-haired maidens. His art
touches us, as we feel his great commitment and potent imagination. We have
here a versatile and vigorous artist, of whom we can expect a great deal in the
future.”
The
painter
As mentioned, it can hardly have taken
anyone by surprise that it was Erik Hjorth Nielsen’s turn to receive the Ministry
of Culture’s Prize for Illustrators. He calls himself an illustrator, but it
would be more reasonable to call him a painter. As we know, it is usual for a painter
to stick to one style that develops in the course of the work, but has its
starting point in his/her way of interpreting the world and its component
parts.
I
imagine that Erik Hjorth Nielsen calls himself an illustrator because he
fulfils assignments that in their very nature are bound by words and
narratives. But Hjorth Nielsen manages to articulate his pictures metaphysically.
For him it is a question of words and narratives as the decisive implements for
his interpretation of the world and all its parts in an illustration.
This is an excerpt from Niels Jacobsen’s
article “The Ministry of Culture’s Prize for Illustrators awarded to Erik
Hjorth Nielsen”, Børn & Bøger,
no. 8, 1988.
Translated by Gaye Kynoch
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