David Wenzel

David Wenzel has been part of the fantasy art movement since the 1970’s when, Middle Earth The World of Tolkien Illustrated was released. He has continued to work on fantasy projects in the children’s book, trade book, and graphic novel markets throughout his career. Illustrations from his 1980s book, Kingdom of the Dwarves, are in the permanent collection of the New Britain Museum of American Art. These early works reflected his interest in pen and ink combined with watercolor, inspired by artists like Rackham and Dulac. This technique was instrumental in creating the artworks for, The Hobbit, graphic novel in the early 90s, which has been revised, and is still in print worldwide. Over time the ink line has disappeared from his work and his current works are generated to be paintings. One of the aspects of the fantastic that has intrigued Wenzel are the areas where people begin to believe there are elements of fantasy have existed in our “real” world. This has led him to return to, Kingdom of the Dwarves, to expand the narrative he was developing at the beginning of his career. Like many of his painting contemporaries he believes his best work is still in front of him.

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