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Bo Newell's love for wildlife began at the age of five and has continued to this day. As a painter of animals and their social behavior in the environments in which they live, he has a particular passion for the wildlife and landscapes of Africa. He has made several trips to Africa and has continued to paint this beautiful continent and its animals for over 30 years. He has studied the animals' anatomies, their social behavior and their relationships with other species in their environment.
While enjoying painting his subjects in the traditional manner, he began to exploring and developing his own approach to wildlife. Early on, while studying art at Texas Tech University, he developed a strong interest in Surrealism and trompe l'oeil, which became an individual style that is present in his Tromp L'oeil work. Over the years, his own surrealistic approach to painting has allowed more freedom and expression in the way he feels toward his subjects By combining artifacts from various historical periods with animals and human subjects, he has developed a style which is specifically Bo Newell. Ravensburger HistoryRavensburger Spieleverlag GmbH is a German game company and market leader in the European jigsaw puzzle market.
The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier with seat in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract. He started publishing instruction folders for craftsmen and architects, which soon acquired him a solid financial basis. His first board game appeared in 1884, named "Journey around the world".
At the turn of the 20th century, his product line broadened to include picture books, books, children’s activity books, Art Instruction manuals, non-fiction books, and reference books as well as children’s games, Happy Families and activity kits. In 1900, the Ravensburger blue triangle trademark was registered with the Imperial Patent office. As of 1912, many board and activity games had an export version that was distributed to Western Europe, the countries of the Danube Monarchy as well as Russia.
Before the First World War, Ravensburger had around 800 products. The publishing house was damaged during the Second World War and continued to produce games in the years of the reconstruction. The company focused on children's games and books and specialized books for art, architecture and hobbies, and from 1962 grew strongly. The company started to produce jigsaw puzzle games in 1964, and in the same year opened subsidiaries in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In 1977 the company split into a book publishing arm and a game publishing arm.
Today there are approximately 1,800 available books and 850 games as well as puzzles, hobby products and CD-ROM titles at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries, which include Alea for "hobby and ardent game players" and FX Schmid for games and children's books. Ravensburger products are exported to more than fifty countries.
In September 2010, Ravensburger broke Educa's record for the world's largest jigsaw puzzle of 24,000 pieces. Ravensburger's new puzzle design by late pop artist Keith Haring titled, 'Keith Haring: Double Retrospect' breaks the Guinness Book of World Records measuring 17' × 6' built from 32,256 pieces and comes with its own dolly cart for toting. |
