Peter de Sève

Peter de Sève. A SKETCHY PAST: THE ART OF PETER DE SÈVE. [SN26825X] $55

This is the career retrospective book on this fantastic illustrator and designer. It is the book we've all been waiting for: a large format coffee table art book in full color on a heavy mat stock. With a brief text by Amid Amidi. And a Foreword by Chris Wedge (Ice Age).

In this exquisite monograph, world-renowned illustrator and character designer Peter de Sève shows his favorite published and unpublished works. Inventive, eccentric, and often irreverent, they represent a lifetime of drawing . . . a very sketchy past.

Peter de Sève is one of America’s foremost contemporary American illustrators. Beginning his career as an editorial illustrator in the early eighties, de Sève has gone on to create artwork that has graced the covers and interiors of countless major publications, books, and posters. He has also played an influential role in the design of numerous animated feature films, including the blockbuster Ice Age series. The imagery that springs from his pen marries colorful personalities with expert storytelling, and wild flights of imagination with a masterly drawing technique that harkens back to a bygone era of impeccable draftsmanship and craft. Copiously illustrated with hundreds of paintings and drawings, including never-before-published New Yorker cover roughs, behind-the-scenes animation development artwork, and personal sketches, A Sketchy Past is the first comprehensive survey of de Sève’s work. A career-spanning biographical essay written by historian Amid Amidi, along with comments from de Sève throughout the book, offer a unique insight into his approach to illustration and his artistic process.

"Peter’s characters are believable, original, and always appealing. Even his “bad guys” are appealing. Be it a grasshopper, a pelican, or an angler fish, Peter takes something you think you know and gives it to you in a way that you’ve never seen it before."—John Lasseter, chief creative officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios

"It may sound overly simplistic, but Peter can just draw! His style is based on an ability to draw without any tricks or fancy techniques. It’s the type of thing that drives comic book and animation artists crazy."—Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy

A Sketchy Past was recently featured in The New York Times Sunday Book Review:

"Peter de Sève is much better known than kamishibai artists, but he does the same job of telling stories. His numerous covers for The New Yorker tell ironic tales of the city. “Panhandler,” a fanciful drawing of the mythical half man, half goat Pan playing his proverbial pipes on a New York street corner, is as farcical as it is evocative of the real talents who busk for loose change. De Sève’s “Through the Wringer,” showing a flabby naked man walking through an airport metal detector (ignored by all the passers-by), captures the way many people actually feel when going through the ordeal. These and many more illustrations are collected in a gorgeously designed coffee-table book, A SKETCHY PAST: The Art of Peter de Sève (Akileos, $54.95).

"The sketches implied in the title are probably the best part. De Sève’s finished pieces are very fluid and impressionistic while totally representational, with hints of caricature at every turn. But his looser sketches are the real masterpieces of visual erudition. He depicts character and expression so completely with only a few well-composed lines and shades. And among the most delightful, in a book that will doubtless serve as a textbook for today’s aspiring artists, are production sketches for the animated “Ice Age” films, for which he designed the amazing characters (under the supervision of the director Chris Wedge, who wrote the book’s foreword). Although de Sève is certainly a people person, drawingwise, I haven’t seen such a master with animals since John James Audubon — if Audubon had done caricatures of prehistoric creatures, that is." - Steven Heller

Each copy of A Sketchy Past comes with a signed bookplate, designed exclusively for Stuart Ng Books:

Paris: Akileos, 2009. 1st edition. 12 ½" x 11" x 1", 240 pages, color and black & white illustrations, hardcover pictorial boards. VF book/VF dust-jacket. Weight almost 5 lbs.

Peter de Sève. de Sève, Randall. THE DUCHESS OF WHIMSY. [SN26969X] $18

NY: Philomel, 2009. 1st. 4to (11-13"), unpaged (28pp), color, pictorial boards. NF (slightly bumped corner)/NF. With an exclusive illustrated bookplate signed by both the artist and the author (available only through Stuart Ng Books). "This absolutely delicious fairy tale about two royals - and their discovery of each other over a simple grilled cheese sandwich - proves that people are often more than they seem!
"Award-winning artist Peter de Sève and his duchess, Randall de Sève, author of the New York Times bestselling Toy Boat, join hands to create this delightful, extraordinary romp of a tale."

Peter de Sève. PETER DE SÈVE SKETCHBOOK. [SN26502X] $35

Geneva: Paquet, 2004. 2nd. Square 8vo (8-9"), 136pp, b&w, pictorial boards. VF.

Peter’s sketchbook back in stock and not available from any other source in the United States. Peter is an award-winning magazine illustrator and cover artist. He also works in animation designing for Blue Sky (Ice Age), Pixar, Disney, and Dreamworks. His character designs have been the highlight of several "Art Of" animation books. At last, we have a thick collection of his drawings & sketches in pencil, pen and brush. Introduction by Francoise Mouly (The New Yorker) in both French and English.

Peter de Sève. SPECTRUM 16 CALL FOR ENTRIES POSTER (LIMITED REMARQUED EDITION). [SN26503X] $50

2008. 1st. 16" x 20" color print, VF. Limited to 50 signed & numbered copies with a small ink drawing by the artist. Peter created this great watercolor cartoon of a New York subway platform populated by sci-fi, fantasy, and comics characters (your typical comic-con crowd) for the Spectrum 16 Call for Entries poster. Peter's illustration is nicely printed on a heavy stock and surrounded by an ample white border. Peter has drawn a small character in the lower left corner and signed and numbered the print in the lower right corner. (Peter has created only 14 remarques to date. There will be no more than 50 total.)

When ordering, please specify the number of the remarque below that you would like to purchase:

# 2	# 3	#6

# 7	# 8	# 9

# 13	#14

Peter de Sève. ILLUSTRATION '05 #1. [SN23782X] $20

St. Paul, MO: 2005. 1st. 4to (11-13”), 80pp, color, wraps. Fine. Limited to 3000 copies.

From the publisher of Illustration Magazine, this magazine devoted to contemporary illustration. The featured artist is Peter de Sève with a 24-page interview and 36 illustrations in color. The other artists profiled are Joe De Vito, Marc Gabbana, and Joseph Csatari. Out of print.

Anderson, Hans Christian. THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES. [SN25350] $18

NY: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1998. 1st. 4to (11-13"), x, 85pp, 35 full-page color illustrations, cloth spine. Small stain to lower back corner otherwise VF/VF.

A benefit book with an all-star line-up of children's book illustrators each contributing one full-page color illustration: Sendak, de Sève, Payne, Teague, Adel, Goodrich, Kelley, Van Allsburg, Marcellino, Joyce, others. An accompanying audio CD has celebrities reading the story.

Vaz, Mark Cotta. THE ART OF FINDING NEMO. [SN24250X] $30

San Francisco: Chronicle, 2003. 1st. Oblong 4to (11-13" wide), 160pp, over 400 color illustrations, boards. VF/Fine. Pre-production art & storyboards from the Pixar film. Art by Ralph Eggleston, Simon Varela, Peter de Sève, & others. Storyboard.