Balloons and Bubbles in Art and Illustration

‘New Techniques for a Beautiful Moustache’ Japanese postcard, Late Meiji period 1908

Here’s an example of 1960s children’s humour found in The Joke Book, illustrated by Bill and Bonnie Rutherford. There’s a lot of flight in children’s literature, with flying being one of the main wish fulfilment fantasies. There’s also a lot of floating, which is related.

Poster by Achille Luciano Mauzan, 1923

Illustration by Ati Forberg from ‘Attic of the Wind’ by Doris Herold Lund. published by World’s Work, 1966. Flat illustration combined with line drawing.

Millicent the Monster by Mary Lystad, Illustrations by Victoria Chess frontispiece illustration

Balloons from a film called Phantom Thread

Molly Brett (1902–1990) was an English illustrator and children’s author. Somehow this balloon looks kind of like a fruit.

Woman’s Home Companion Magazine December 1939 Haddon Sundblom Cover art (detail). I’d like to see a man posed like this holding balloons.

‘The balloon seller’ by Racey Helps, well-known for the depicting fully anthropomorphised rabbits (in Beatrix Potter tradition).

In Animalville 1939.
Caption: Tabby and Peter feasted on goodies at the fair.

This illustration is by Eileen A. Soper for an for Enid Blyton story.

This illustration is by Clara Ernst & Dorothy Grider for Up the Street and Down, a Betts Basic Readers primer by Emmett A. Betts and & Carolyn M. Welch, 1948. These days I think kids would be told by parents, Never buy a balloon from a strange dude who stands around near groups of kiddies.

This is from All Around Me by the great Shirley Hughes, who has always depicted the realness of childhood. Note the two kids fighting as the others line up for a balloon.

Pierre Probst [1913-2007] ‘Notre-Dame’ 1979, Caroline visite Paris – Tome. The fear of being lifted by a bunch of balloons is very real nightmare fuel exacerbated by an international corpus of children’s literature. This is how fairgrounds become inverted horror settings, folks.

The Great Sea Horse 1909 by Isabel Anderson. I actually don’t know what these are. Are they giant redback sacs? I live in Australia. I find these in the garage every year.

DE WENSBALLONNEN (1971) (The Wish Balloons) by Adrie Hospes. A relatively dark set of illustrations, in contrast to the brightness of many illustrated books featuring bright balloons.

‘Still Life’ by Alfred Eberling (1872-1951). Eberling was a Polish artist who moved to St Petersburg. The colours and transparency are magnificent, as is the goldfish bowl vase which looks like another balloon.

Mikhail Bychkov – Three Fat Men. The balloons look very skinny.

Molly Brett (1902–1990) was an English illustrator and children’s author. Balloons and the fair go together.

I haven’t found the illustrator but it’s from 1933.

Thé Tjong-Khing is a children’s book illustrator based in the Netherlands. He was born in Purworedjo, Java. The placement of that red balloon gives the eyes a focal point in a busy illustration.

One at a time, a girl discovers ten clues hidden in her large modern house, which will lead her, after a thrilling treasure hunt, to her secret garden. Another example of a red balloon utilised as focal point.

RADIO CRAFT MAGAZINE DECEMBER 1931 VINTAGE ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY NEWS

BUBBLES

Before balloons became a popular feature of childhood, bubbles seemed to play a similar function to balloons in children’s illustration and imagination.

First of all, if you’re unfamiliar with Virgil Finlay, master of bubbles, here’s how he snuck bubble shapes into most of his work (or sometimes made a feature of them: