Arthur Rackham

Gentleman Smoking Graphite on tinted paper, n.d. Unsigned Image size: 9 x 6 1/2 inches frame size: 17 x 13 inches Exhibited: The British Art of Illustration 1800-1995, No. 505 Chris Beetles Limited, London (see label) Provenance: Estate of Barbara Edwards, the daughter of the artist Chris Beetle Limited (see label) Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Washington, DC (see label) Arthur Rackham RWS (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939) was an English book illustrator. He is recognized as one of the leading literary figures during the Golden Age of British book illustration. His work is noted for its robust pen and ink drawings, which were combined with the use of watercolor, a technique he developed due to his background as a journalistic illustrator. Rackham's 51 color pieces for the Early American tale became a turning point in the production of books since – through color-separated printing – it featured the accurate reproduction of color artwork. Some of his best-known works include the illustrations for Rip Van Winkle, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Biography Rackham was born at 210 South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, London as one of 12 children. In 1884, at the age of 17, he was sent on an ocean voyage to Australia to improve his fragile health, accompanied by two aunts. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art. In 1892, he left his job and started working for the Westminster Budget as a reporter and illustrator. His first book illustrations were published in 1893 in To the Other Side by Thomas Rhodes, but his first serious commission was in 1894 for The Dolly Dialogues, the collected sketches of Anthony Hope, who later went on to write The Prisoner of Zenda. Book illustrating then became Rackham's career for the rest of his life. By the turn of the century, Rackham had developed a reputation for pen and ink fantasy illustration with richly illustrated gift books such as The Ingoldsby Legends (1898), Gulliver's Travels and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (both 1900). This was developed further through the austere years of the Boer War with regular contributions to children's periodicals such as Little Folks...

Published in both Fairy Tales Old and New (1905), and in Haydon's Stories of Kind Arthur (1910). Rackham reworked an almost identical illustration he has created for his 1902 series "Storied of the Table Round," published in the magazine Little Folks...

India ink pen drawing for the publication Pall Mall Gazette, October 8,1891, on the birth of Queen Victoria's 34th grandchild. Shows the queen wearing the Imperial Crown sitting in...