Viking Magazine - August 2022 - 21

was tragically cut short in 1918 when he and his family
drowned in Lake Vättern in Sweden.
From Fairy Tale to Fantasy
The man who took over the mantle as the second
illustrator for " Bland tomtar och troll " was Gustaf
Tenggren. Tenggren's name never reached the same lofty
height as Bauer's or Kittelsen's in the world of folklore
and fairy tale inspired illustrations, and that itself is
something of a great irony. His work with trolls is no less
impressive-but it wasn't his life's work. He completed
10 editions of " Bland tomtar och troll " and emigrated to
the United States where he found work with a variety of
magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan,
and Life, and provided illustrations for the American
edition of Hans Christian Andersen's " Fairy Tales. "
After gradually building his reputation in the world of
print, he eventually made perhaps the biggest impact of
any of the artists who had cut their teeth drawing trolls
one way or another: he became the lead conceptual
artist for the first Walt Disney animated feature film,
" Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, " for which he was
responsible for creating and orchestrating all of the
film's aesthetics. Subsequently, he fulfilled the same role
for " Pinocchio, " " Fantasia " and " Bambi. "
After these, he left Disney and began working
with Little Golden Books, for which he illustrated
" The Poky Little Puppy, " which by the start of the
2000s had become
the best-selling
children's book of all
time. Despite these
accomplishments,
Tenggren's name
remains relatively
unknown, and his
contributions to the
illustrations of trolls
early in his career
remains even more
unknown.
Enduring Legacy
The heyday of troll
illustrations ebbed
as the 20th century
wore on. Asbjørnsen
and Moe's collections
of folktales were
no longer regularly
released as new issues
full of new artwork,
and the splash made
@sonsofnorway
by subsequent illustrators of " Bland tomtar och troll "
never quite reached the zenith established by Bauer (a
new volume continues to be published in Sweden each
year, however).
But the legacy of these early troll artists endures.
Current artists continue to walk in the footsteps of
those that came before them, adding their own unique
twists to the imagery of trolls and other folkloric
beings, such as Johan Egerkrans, Reine Rosenberg,
Ulla Thynell and Peter Madsen, who has contributed
illustrations to recent editions of " Bland tomtar och
troll " but is perhaps best known for his comic series,
" Valhalla. "
Trolls also continue to linger in the popular
imagination and make their appearances in various
mediums to delight or frighten audiences. Films such as
" Trollhunter " and the " Trolls " animated series (based
upon the Danish line of bright-haired toys) as well as
novels such as Johanna Sinisalo's " Troll: A Love Story "
and Nancy Farmer's " The Sea of Trolls, " and even
public art pieces such as the Fremont Troll that lurks
under a bridge in Seattle all provide solid evidence
of this. And these trolls all look more or less like we'd
expect them to, thanks to the establishment of troll
aesthetics developed at the hands of late 19th and early
20th century artists like Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer
and Tenggren. ▼
" Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, " Gustaf Tenggren, 1937
August 2022
21
PHOTO BY MARY EVANS / WALT DISNEY PICTURES/RONALD GRANT / EVERETT COLLECTION
Viking Magazine - August 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Viking Magazine - August 2022
