Janina Ede - Colette artwork

This section includes a number of colour illustrations, black and white ink illustrations and pencil sketches by Janina Ede for books by the French author Colette. It is organized slightly haphazardly. It is likely that section headings may change as I find out more about the intended (or actual) place of publication of some of the artworks.

Additional cover artworks for Colette books can also be found in the 'Book Cover Artworks' section.

(1) Colour illustrations

Amongst the Colette illustrations are some that include a certain amount of colour. These are not full colour artworks but are either predominantly black with a little splash of colour, or predominantly green and black. I have selected 6 of these below.

Colour illustration 1

Colour illustration 2

Colour illustration 3

Colour illustration 4

Colour illustration 5

Colour illustration 6

These artworks look like they may have been intended for 'Gigi' but I have found no evidence yet to confirm this.

(2a) 'My Apprenticeships' and 'Musical Hall Sidelights' - published and and unpublished

In 1968 Heron Books published the complete works of Colette, which included a volume titled 'My Apprenticeships' and 'Music-Hall Sidelights' containing two autobiographical works. This volume also included six illustrations by Janina Ede. Below are roughs and alternative versions of four of these illustrations, in each case compared with the published version.

The first example is an illustration of dance hall girls in the changing room:

Dance hall girls - published illustration

Dance hall girls - unpublished illustration 1

Dance hall girls - unpublished illustration 2

Dance hall girls - unpublished illustration 3

Dance hall girls - unpublished illustration 4

Dance hall girls - sketch 1

Dance hall girls - sketch 2

Dance hall girls - sketch 3

As can be seen above, the final printed version of the changing room illustrations incorporates elements from many of the unpublished sketches and illustrations. The same applies with the published version of the 'Colette and Children' illustration below.

Colette and children - published version

Colette and children - unpublished version

Out with the family - unpublished illustration

The above three published and unpublished illustrations all have very striking depictions of wild flowers and plants. The last, with several inky figures trailing through, does not prominently feature Colette and children but the overall similarity in layout and style suggests it may have been an alternative version.

Woman and child - published version

Woman and child - unpublished version

With the above two illustrations one can't help thinking that the unpublished version is more interesting and prettier than the published version.

House exterior - published version

House exterior - unpublished version

These last two (above) are both very pretty illustrations of 'finished' quality. The main difference between them seems to be the closing of one window, and moving of the hanging stocking to the other, in the printed version.

(2b) 'My Apprenticeships' and 'Music Hall Sidelights' - submitted and returned

To make things more complicated, the collection also contains some separate, signed and labelled illustrations that were submitted to and returned by the publisher for the same volume.

Publishers return slip

Many of these illustrations overlap with some of those shown in the previous section, whilst others are illustrations no version or element of which ever saw the light of day. It might make more sense to integrate these with the others already listed in a more logical way. However, I have decided to keep them separate as a distinct set of 6, as they are all signed, mounted and have individual descriptive labels from the artist on the reverse. I have used these labels as captions below:

My Apprenticeships - Ch.5 (Alternative)

Music Hall Sidelights 'The Misfit' (Alternative)

Music Hall Sidelights - 'The Halt' (Alternative)

My Apprenticeships Ch.2 - 'Colette discovers Willi & Charlotte'

Music Hall Sidelights - 'Lola'

My Apprenticeships Ch.12 - 'Noseless prostitute'

(3) Miscellaneous Colette illustrations

There are a number of other nicely executed illustrations and sketches in the collection which appear to be roughs or try-outs for Colette books. Many of them look like they could also have been destined for 'Gigi and The Cat' or 'My Apprenticeships and Music Hall Sidelights'. A selection are shown below: