The Legacy: Writer, Translator, Artist, Illustrator

and so empowered to act as legal owner of the rights granted.) It was also stipulated that Adrienne Segur would see 50% of the income from the reproduction of her drawings in foreign countries. Eventually, her work would be translated and re-edited during the 1960s in English, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish, sometimes markedly changing the exterior of the original French version: Buckram boards for the first flat laminating, pink-toned ornamentation for the English speakers,... The English version was translated by the poet Marie Ponsot.

Virtually unknown personally, Adrienne Segur's illustrations of the best-known children's stories were thus, thanks to her choice of editor, known worldwide. Popular fashion has changed considerably, and the style of books for children as well. It would require a daring spirit to publish a new version of the same Nutcracker or Alice of Adrienne Segur! And one would be crazy to dare to imagine, as Claude-Anne Parmegiani, a new edition of Enchanted Beasts in a small format. This last children's book professional, commenorates Adrienne in Les Petits francais illustres in 1989, the following dedication: In her initial works, she adopted a childish graphic style, destined to overcome its own clumsiness. Thereafter, she would overcome this difficulty, falling into its opposite excess, but continually demonstrating her artistic skills. She then employs a style, which impacts the preciousness of the early style, in a more formal illustrations of coquettish girls! Success never belies her work as with the public acclaim of our day, as if a response to this strange caricature of an analsyis.

Thanks to funds miraculously provided by Christian Bookshop, a good many of her working documents and origial designs, the layers on which she worked, even the proofs she corrected finely in her own hand, it is possible to grasp the full extent of the work and the range of this artist. As gift-books for children, her albums were a landmark for a generations little girls, who dreamed of being like the small women-girls with the sad faces, of her princesses with the wavy hair, surrounded by jewels and benevolent animals, and that focus first and foremost on the value of feeling. One little girl loved the incredible skill in Adrienne Segur's Nutcracker designs that were given as a reward, other little princesses protected by their enchanted beasts -- for each a different Adrienne Segur and for all an illustrator who understood the fairy tales... to the point of becoming them.

Other Biography Pages

1: Cover Photo      

2: Birth, Marriage to Mounir Hafez, Biographical Information      

3: Evolution of Style      

4: Later Work      

5: Flammarion      

6: Legacy      

7: List of Published Works      

8: Endpiece