Wanda Gág: A Bibliographic Essay

Abstract

Wanda Gág:A Bibliographic Essay Karen Nelson Hoyle Wanda Gág's total output of children's books was ten titles, and a story published in The Delineator in 1935, "The Cry-Away Bird." Four were original narratives (Millions of Cats, 1928; The Funny Thing, 1929; Snippy and Snappy, 1931; and Nothing at All, 1941) , one an alphabet book (The A B C Bunny, 1933) one an autobiography based on her early diaries (Growing Pains, 1940), and four translations of Grimm (Tales from Grimm, 1936; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1938; Three Gay Tales, 1943, and More Tales from Grimm, published posthumously in 1947), and all were published by Coward McCann. Biographical information and reviews comprise the secondary literature, rather than criticism. Contributors are Gág herself, journalists, librarians, art historians, and literature and art critics. Gág may have set the stage for articles about a poor girl pursuing a dream. Her anonymous article, "These Modern Women a Hotbed of Feminists" in The Nation (June, 1927), described Senta Muhr's unusual youth. Wanda kept a diary from the age of fifteen until her death, and some of the incidents cited in the article also appeared in Growing Pains. "She is unusually articulate for an artist,"1 curator Carl Zigrosser stated. Wanda's lifetime correspondence with childhood friend Alma Scott was quoted in the latter's biography, as were letters to Zigrosser incorporated into his writing about her. The two mimeographed letters sent by Coward McCann to fans were composed by Wanda. Wanda wrote to Edith Newton in 1939, " . . . Nowadays I have so much mail . . . I'm writing a sort of 'blanket letter' in which I'll try to answer most of the questions they manage to work up."2 The four page letter entitled "A Greeting from Wanda Gág to You" differs from the seven page "A Message from Wanda Gág." The latter is a composite of biographical information, her four aims in creating juvenile literature, advice to artists and writers, and a bibliography. One of the aims which could be a basis for criticism about her work, for example, is "To make my pictures as much a work of art as anything I would [End Page 28] send to an art exhibition." Wanda Gág was her own best critic, as is apparent in statements she made about her work and in an article. In response to requests for catalog copy, she described her subject, and her interpretation. "I Like Fairy Tales", written for The Horn Book (March-April, 1939), provides researchers with background against which to judge her success in "freely translating" the Grimm Märchen. Newspaper and periodical journalists who interviewed Gág stressed her family circumstances and her creative energy. Even the titles of the articles are revealing. Ann Herendeen's "Wanda Gág, the True Story of a Dynamic Young Artist Who Won't Be Organized" (Century Magazine, August, 1928), Ruth Howe's "Wanda and Six Other Gágs" (Woman's Journal, January, 1929), and newspaper articles on the same theme followed in succession. Even her editor, Rose Dobbs, used this angle in "All Creation, Wanda Gág and Her Family" (Horn Book, November-December, 1935). The most substantive biographical treatment is Alma Scott's Wanda Gág; the Story of an Artist (University of Minnesota Press, 1949). A good friend of Gág since her freshman year of high school, "Boswella" received a Regional Writing Fellowship from the University of Minnesota in 1944 for the project. In the introduction, "To the Reader", Scott describes how during the summer of 1944 she and Wanda met each morning at "All Creation" to peruse the working drafts. Scott's method and materials were interviews, newspaper and school files, correspondence, and reminiscing. Written for a young adult audience although published by a university press, the book lacks objectivity and maturity. Another impressive effort was undertaken by The Horn Book in its publication of the May-June, 1947 Wanda Gág Memorial issue. People well acquainted with Wanda Gág wrote articles from their respective roles in her life. "Art for Life's Sake", by a former New York Public Library's head of...