In 1930, Czech artist Jaro Hess' painting, "Adventure in Storyland," which offered a dazzling Grand Unifying Theory of the world's fairy tales, was turned into a poster by The Child's Wonderland Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's been reissued by various companies over the years; apparently the copyright's currently held by Hagstrom Map Company, who licensed it to Rosen-Ducat, who's reprinting it again.
It all sounds so straightforward now, but maybe that's because I haven't spent years since my childhood trying to track this thing down, like DT reader Chris did:
My mom bought this amazing giant map/poster of "The Land of Make Believe" around 1970, and I grew up with it hanging on my bedroom wall. The scenesDisney or Shrek.
and characters from it are etched in my brain, although sadly Mom gave it
away to a daycare center when I was 10 or so. (About once a year since
1997 or so, I've done Google and eBay searches, and I always ask in poster
shops if anyone had ever heard of the poster - since I didn't know the
name of the illustrator - just that it was lebeled "The Land of Make
Believe")...It's neat to see something like this where the characters
come from a time before Disney "standardized" all fairy tale imagery. Of course I've ordered a reprint, so I can at least give my younger son the same nightmares I had...
RDI sells two 24.5 x 36-in. versions of "The Land of Make-Believe," $65 or $95, depending on the type of paper. The freak-out effect is probably the same. [jarohesslomb.com via basic joy, thanks dt reader chris]
Where can I see a bigger version of this poster? I want to check it out more before freaking out my kids :)
[RDI has some detail shots of the reprint, and basic joy has some details of her original, 1930 edition. -ed.]
Here's one that is a little bigger:
http://jarohess.com/index_files/image8011.jpg
My pediatrician had this in his office back in the early 70s--I'd forgotten about it until now. Nice to see it again! (By contrast, the office of my sons' pediatrician has paintings of psychotic-looking clowns, painted I think by the doctor himself. I won't be looking for reproductions of those any time soon.)
Thanks, I didn't catch the image gallery the first time. It's very cool! But I'm not sure I'm up for $65 for a poster at this point.
Dear Lord... forgot that I had one of these bad boys when I was little. I wonder what happened to it?
reminds me of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GardenED.jpg
[another nursery classic! -ed.]
There was an indie rock band from Athens, Georgia that used part of the poster as album art for an album called When the Red King Comes. It's has a great Brian Eno cover and some great originals, too.
I have an original of this poster that my Father bought from an auction. I had it archivally framed when I inherited it. My 4 year old daughter has it in her bedroom and she loves it. There is another version of this theme that I saw in an old movie once and I have been looking for that version ever since. I hope to have a matching pair one day. I am glad to see that someone found some background on it. I have never been able to track down any information on it.
My mother bought this land of make believe picture from a rummage sale and it looks really old it is copywrited 1930 by Jaro Hess and it also says the childs wonderland company from GRAND RAPIDS mICHIGAN, CAN SOMEONE TELL ME IF THIS PRINT IS WORTH MONEY BECAUSE i SEEN ONE ON EBAY FOR 3,500 DOLLARS, I LOVE THE PRINT I JUST WANTED TO KNOW HOW MUCH ITS WORTH.
well, if it didn't sell on eBay, you know it's worth less than $3500. You could try listing it with a low starting bid and a very high reserve price, and see what people will bid.
I had this Jaro Hess posterover my bed from 1935 to 1945 & would walk through it every night before going to bed. It was the most stimulating illustration of all my childhood. In 1958 I found a copy of it in a Madison Avenue print shop & bought it for my newly-born nephew, but his parents never put it up in his room and lost it. I'd love to find a copy again & would willingly buy it if anyone knows where one could be found.
have this same print published by the childs wonderland co. Apparently there were many versions and each time it was printed something little changed. On earlier prints like ours the "Wandering Jew" is there and on later ones they took off the Jew part and just have "Wanderer" Also took off the 1930 just below his name in the schroll on the left bottom corner. The Publisher also seems to change. Originally it was published by Jaro Hess and then Childs Wonderland Co. and then The Dickenson Bros. This Piece has a story and its very fascinating. I am trying to research the history. One of the first prints is now being offered on ebay for $4999.00. Then a later one is on there for $500. Your guess is as good as mine how much this could be worth and when it was reprinted. Sometime between 1930 & 1958. And is probably worth around $3000 or so. Just hang on to it! Its cool to own such a famous piece of art with a story like this.
please let me know if you found out anything else about it.