Vilhelm Pedersen

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Thomas Vilhelm Pedersen (28 January 1820 – 13 March 1859) was a Danish artist best known for being the first artist to illustrate the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen.

Andersen's earliest tales were published without illustrations, but in 1849, his popularity was growing and a new, five volume collection of his tales was published with 125 illustrations by Pedersen, a young naval officer. The Pedersen illustrations found favor with the author, and, in Denmark today, are considered inseparable from the fairy tales in the same way that the Tenniel illustrations are for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Woodcuts from Pedersen's drawings were first produced for a German edition of the tales published by Carl B. Lorck in Leipzig. Andersen's Danish publisher, C.A. Reitzel, paid Lorck for the rights to the Pedersen illustrations.

Pedersen died at the age of 39.

[edit] References

• Ask Art: Vilhelm Pedersen Retrieved 4 February 2008
• The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen Retrieved 4 February 2008
• Weilbach, Ph. (1898) "Pedersen, Thomas Vilhelm" in Carl Frederik Bricka (ed.) Dansk biografisk Lexikon / XII. Bind. Münch - Peirup (Danish). Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, pp. 641-62.