Arthur Rackham: Epilogue

Illustration from "Rip Van Winkle"
by Arthur Rackham

"Under the shadow of the opening of the Second World War, Rackham’s death received less attention in the Press than it would have done at another time. The obituary notice in The Times described him as ‘one of the most eminent book illustrators of his day’ with ‘a special place in the hearts of children’, and contrasted his belief in ‘the sacrosanct quality of the text’ with an ‘unmistakable personal idiosyncrasy’. ‘His genius had something of the Gothic flavour … his line was in the last degree sensitive.’ 

In December 1939, the memorial exhibition at the Leicester Galleries brought together examples of Rackham’s finest work from his best period, together with several of his landscapes and the majority of the principal drawings for Poe’s 'Tales,' 'Peer Gynt,' and 'The Wind in the Willows.'

'The Wind in the Willows,' with Rackham’s last illustrations, was published in New York by the Limited Editions Club in 1940. On this volume Bruce Rogers, greatest of American book designers, lavished all his skill. The drawings were not generally known in ​England until Methuen published a popular edition at a guinea in 1950, omitting a few of the plates, including the frontispiece in which Toad, disguised as a washerwoman, attempts to bargain with the booking-clerk at the railway station – a clerk who bears an unmistakable resemblance to Arthur Rackham.  

Rackham’s will, drawn up in favour of his wife and daughter, was proved at nearly £25,000. Mrs Rackham did not long survive her husband. She died in March 1941, aged seventy-three.

As Rackham’s death occurred in the early days of the war, it proved impossible to fulfil his wish for cremation at Golders Green because the undertakers, fearful of air raids that did not happen, refused to venture into London. His funeral therefore took place at Croydon. When Mrs Rackham died, heavy air raids were such everyday occurrences that no objections were raised. Edyth Rackham was cremated at Golders Green, and her ashes were then scattered with her husband’s in the Garden of Remembrance there. 

Since his death Rackham’s prestige in the book-collectors’ market has been fully maintained. It is understandable that such a prolific illustrator, who kept up a remarkably high standard of achievement over a very long period, should have become a focus of interest.  Altogether, the hunt for books illustrated by Rackham has already provided much pleasure for those who are disposed to take it up, and may well provide a great deal more, whatever the current prices may happen to be (and they will always vary according to the circumstances of a sale and the condition of the book). His reward has been not only a world-wide reputation but the affection felt by a multitude, young and old, for the ‘Beloved Enchanter’, ‘Le Peintre Sorcier’."

The End

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.) 

Arthur Rackham: Wind in the Willows (Pt. 2)

An illustration for "Wind in the Willows"
by Arthur Rackham

"By the spring of 1938, Arthur Rackham could report only limited progress on the illustrations for 'Wind in the Willows.' In the autumn of that year he went into the Oxted and Limpsfield Cottage Hospital for an operation for cancer. On 22nd November 1938, he wrote a pencilled note from the hospital to Mrs. E. Williams Bailey, an admirer and collector of his work:

‘I wish I could give a good account of either my wife or myself. My wife has borne up amid great disturbances astonishingly well, but I fear it cannot be said that she is better. And I – well the less said the better. Henceforth life will only be possible for me with the aid of a surgical nurse – whether at home or at the hospital as at present. I wish I could stop losing weight – but I eat with difficulty & haemorrhage is frequent & severe. So I am very weak.’

And on 28th November he wrote to the same correspondent:

‘…I am told I must not expect to be able to gauge the future possibilities for my life in less than about a year. It turns on unknown conditions that cannot be got at – due to the capricious behaviour of a gland, that may get tired of its misbehaviour, or the reverse – in which case my difficulties will be very great. However, we must wait & see. My best hope is to feed as well as I can (at present a very poor effort) & never tire myself.’

He returned home to Stilegate with no illusions; his London studio was abandoned; and as time showed that he was not to recover he became very low and depressed. He spent much of the time in bed, but there were days when he still felt strong enough to work and deal with his affairs.

In June an old friend, the poet and wood-engraver T. Sturge Moore, sent him a kindly letter full of gossip about mutual acquaintances of their student days, and telling him the latest news of the Art-Workers’ Guild. ‘I was very glad to learn that you enjoy respites from exhaustion sometimes long enough to let you get on with the work you have on hand,’ wrote Sturge Moore; ‘I hope you can enjoy the light and heat and that they will help you to stave off exhaustion.’ It was a fine summer, and once, while he was lying in the garden, Rackham said to his nurse: ‘How nice it would be if I could die here under the trees!’

Slowly, the drawings for The Wind in the Willows neared completion. The last drawing of all to be finished was that of Rat and Mole loading their boat for the picnic. Rackham’s daughter remembers his great exhaustion and the extreme difficulty he had in getting it done. When he had, as he thought, finished it, he suddenly discovered that there were no oars in the boat. Barbara tried to persuade him that this was a detail that did not matter, but he insisted that everything must be right, and with great labour he altered the drawing and put in the oars. After he had done this, he lay back in bed and said: ‘Thank goodness, that is the last one.’ And so it proved in every sense.

Arthur Rackham died on 6th September 1939, a few days before his seventy-second birthday. His ending, like his whole life and the strong clear strokes of his pen, had been gallant and true. He had finished his work, and he had made ready his boat for a journey."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.) 

Arthur Rackham: Wind in the Willows (Pt. 1)

Arthur Rackham's "Rat & Mole Have a
Picnic" from "Wind in the Willows"

"That Arthur Rackham’s last subject in book-illustration (for so it proved) was one in which he took especial pleasure, and of which he made an outstanding success, demonstrates a kind of poetic justice not commonly found. Of 'Wind in the Willows', ‘It’s a splendid book, isn’t it!’ he had written to the Simon children in 1909. To him and countless others it had remained a splendid book; and it is now all the more splendid for later generations because its text can be read side by side with Rackham’s entrancing river scenes and the most sympathetic studies of the small animals that he ever achieved. There is a mellow grace, a gentle wisdom, an affectionate humour in these drawings that make them the perfect farewell. 

It is a strange paradox, but one revealing of the man and his character, that these last drawings should have been perhaps the ​gayest and happiest of all his illustrations; for the work was rendered most arduous for him, first by Mrs Rackham’s increasingly serious illness, then by his own gradually failing health. But he began the task immediately. 

A letter from the author’s widow, Mrs. Kenneth Grahame, at Pangbourne, is dated 8th September 1936. In it Mrs Grahame says that she will be ‘very glad’ to help Rackham ‘to discern the special spots on this reach of the river that might be connected with Toad, Mole and Company’, and she continues:

‘The trees which are such a feature along the river-bank here are really more full of “drawing” when the leaves are off – but you may not be able to wait for this aspect – or you may wish to see them (the trees) both in leaf & later on in branch. I know that Kenneth wrote to a small schoolgirl in an elementary school, who had written a prize essay on “The Wind in the Willows” – “I have always thought of ‘Toad Hall’ as being on the Oxfordshire side of the river” – & I know a house, Elizabethan but somewhat ornate, that might serve as a model. There is a lovely backwater where Mole & Rat may have boated, & a spit of foreshore where the swans nest, on which a year or two ago 2 baby otters were found. …

‘I rather hope you may not be time-driven to come till the weather is better again –as at present it is too windy to go on the river – which you might wish to do.

‘I shall be glad to help in any way in my power to show you the scenes & settings most appropriate to your purpose. …’ 

There was no hurry; Rackham’s drawings show trees that are bare and trees that are in leaf; he took-several walks beside the river with Mrs . Grahame. By the spring of 1938, he could report only limited progress, however, and in the autumn of that year he went into the Oxted and Limpsfield Cottage Hospital for an operation for internal ​cancer." (to be continued)

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.)
 

Arthur Rackham: Consistent Excellence through the Years

Illustration for the fairytale "Catskin"
by Arthur Rackham

"The most remarkable thing to note is that Arthur Rackham was maintaining such a consistent standard of excellence at the age of sixty-five. His methods had nevertheless undergone a subtle and almost imperceptible change. There was slight tendency away from over-all pre-Raphaelite fidelity to detail, and towards a measure of impressionism, at least in the backgrounds. 

A. S. Hartrick has described a typical example of Rackham’s method in Edwardian days: how he would run a fairly strong tint of raw umber over his pen drawing – except for a few whites when he needed some accents of pure colour in the end. ‘This warm tone he lifted with a wet brush as he went along, working in local colour as wanted, while carefully watching the main gradations – warm to cold, and vice versa.’ It had been a method helpful to reproduction, giving a pleasing general tone ‘like old vellum’, and with variations it had served Rackham well. 

In later years, however, his approach was more flexible and adaptable; a little influence may perhaps be allowed to weakened eyesight; we notice him using cleaner, brighter colours (and his elves and goblins have sharper noses!). Conscious of working for a new generation, Rackham intended to please them as he had pleased their ​fathers. Although he would probably have wished posterity to judge him by books such as 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'Peter Pan,' he was too consistent a craftsman for anyone to be able to speak of a ‘falling-off’ in the high standard he had set himself.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and His Work" by Derek Hudson.) 

Arthur Rackham: Hans Andersen's "Fairy Tales"

Illustration by Arthur Rackham
from "The Emperor's New Clothes"

"The undertaking that meant most to Arthur Rackham in the early ’thirties was ​his edition of Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales, a project that had been in his mind for many years. With his daughter Barbara he paid a preparatory visit to Denmark in the autumn of 1931, and while in Copenhagen met an old lady who as a child had hidden under a table in order to hear Andersen himself reading some newly written stories to a gathering of adults. Rackham sketched busily both in town and country, visiting farms and local museums. 

‘It is rather fatiguing,’ he wrote to his wife. ‘I have to talk so much & behave myself so well all the while, taking notes & notes for dear life. But everyone is most delightfully friendly & anxious to help. Of course Andersen is their great god. And all, and at the bookshop, are greatly interested in what I have to do.’

A deputation of Danes took Rackham and his daughter to visit Hans Andersen’s grave. As none of the Danes could speak English, and the Rackhams could not speak Danish, the conversation was entirely in mime. At the graveside one of the deputation startled Rackham by producing a large wreath, which he handed to him with a deferential but purposeful gesture towards the grave. While the Danes stood with bared and bowed heads, Rackham rather sheepishly laid the wreath on the grave. As he did so, he muttered to his daughter, ‘This is the sort of thing an Englishman does very badly, I’m afraid!’ ‘Amen, Amen!’ responded the Danes, and replaced their hats.

In a note to his Hans Andersen volume (1932), Rackham emphasized that he had made no attempt in his illustrations ‘to look through Danish eyes’, but he explained:

‘I think that my visit to Denmark, which, with all its modern progress, happily preserves in town and country a genial atmosphere of old dignity in comely everyday use, did give me just that nearer ​view of the author’s country that I needed – a view that helped me to realise again the sensation I felt as a child when I first read Andersen. This sensation experienced in childhood in foreign fairy tales is a foretaste of that encountering of familiar things in unfamiliar guise which later is one of the joys of foreign travel.’ 

The Observer invited Hugh Walpole to choose the best picture-book of 1932. ‘I give the prize without hesitation to Rackham’s Hans Andersen,’ Walpole replied. ‘He has risen nobly to his subject. He has acquired a new tenderness and grace. His fantasy is stronger than ever.’ Twenty-five years after its publication, the Hans Andersen had become one of the most difficult of Rackham’s books to buy second-hand."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His LIfe and Work" by Derek Hudson.)
 

 

Arthur Rackham: New York Visit

"Titania Lying Asleep" by Arthur Rackham

"Arthur Rackham at sixty was unable to come to terms with noisy New York, but he found much to enjoy there. ‘Everyone is excessively kind,’ he wrote; ‘Everyone was brought up on my work – if young enough – or brought up their families on it if old enough.’ He soon had the run of six New York clubs, and was inundated with invitations. ‘The nature of my work seems to have made my name familiar to so many others than artists: the bookish people – librarians, book-lovers & so on. … The artists are extraordinarily friendly, too. I cannot think any American artist coming to our country (except a Whistler or Sargent) could find himself so heartily greeted.’ 

Rackham’s meetings with many publishers and magazine editors in their ‘gorgeous offices’ proved satisfactory and productive, though he was disappointed to find that, as in England, ‘all the publishers are shy of costly books’.  One of the most interesting results of Rackham’s trip was a commission from the New York Public Library to provide for the Spencer Collection there a series of special watercolours illustrating A Midsummer-Night’s Dream. These were exhibited at the Library in 1929, and bound up in a beautiful manuscript book written by Graily Hewitt.

On his last day in America, before sailing in the Olympic at midnight to get home for Christmas, Rackham visited an exhibition of drawings in the Children’s Room of the New York Public Library, met the young artist, and spent the evening with him and Anne Carroll Moore, who later described the occasion in The Horn Book (Christmas, 1939). He told them he was ‘free to kick up my heels until sailing time’, so they drove him in a taxi over the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges to see the lights of the city, took him to supper at ​the Brevoort Grill, and escorted him on board the Olympic with a present of chocolates for his daughter and a candle of good luck to be lit in his cabin."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

Arthur Rackham: The Lure of the States

Arthur Rackham illustration for "Irish Fairy Tales"

"A more serious cause for disappointment for Arthur Rackham was the increasing difficulty of publishing illustrated books of high quality in England during the ’twenties. The market for fine books was not what it had been in the prosperous decade before 1914. And there was more to it than that. The realities of war had dealt a blow to imaginative craftsmanship in general, and to fairyland in particular. It was a symptom of the changed situation that Rackham’s exhibition of recent work at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1919 was the last that he was to hold there for many years; these exhibitions had been a mutual source of profit to him and to Messrs. Ernest Brown and Phillips since 1905, and had played an important part in establishing his reputation.

Fortunately for Rackham, the changed situation in England coincided with a marked display of enthusiasm for his work in the ​United States. The Rackham books, both in their limited and their trade editions, had long established themselves in the book-collectors’ market on both sides of the Atlantic, but it is noticeable that there was now a considerable increase in the number of letters he received from American publishers, collectors, and simple admirers. 

Diving into a pile of surviving ‘fan’ letters we find one from Rochester, New York, written in the late nineteen-twenties, which commences ‘My dear Sir Arthur’, and another containing the apology: ‘Everybody here in New York calls you “Sir Arthur”, and that explains why I began my letter that way.’ (A Melbourne correspondent had already asked: “How shall I begin? Not Mr Rackham surely! It doesn’t sound a bit like the artist spirit who creates those wonderful fairy people. …’) Many of the letters, particularly those from isolated parts of America, are moving evidence of the joy which his books brought, particularly to the young and to invalids who could not travel to art galleries. 

During the nineteen-twenties it became increasingly clear that Rackham would sooner or later have to accede to the requests of his American admirers that he should come over to ‘pick up his laurels’. He went at last in 1927, not only with the object of meeting some of these friends, and of hanging a large exhibition of more than seventy of his works (including the drawings for 'The Tempest') at Scott and Fowles’ gallery, New York, but also with the intention of talking business to publishers and editors."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

Arthur Rackham: Post-WWI Years

"Becuma of the White Skin" from Irish Fairy Tales
illustrated by Arthur Rackham

"During the immediate post-war years several old successes, notably 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' were revived in separate new editions. Arthur Rackham for the first time allowed himself to be tempted into the commercial field by a highly lucrative offer for a series of advertisements from Colgate’s in 1922–23–24. An advertisement for Eno’s Fruit Salts (1928), a chocolate-box cover for Cadbury’s (1933), and covers for book catalogues in the ’thirties represented almost his only other incursions into a sphere that little appealed to his sensibility. He appeared more appropriately, in miniature, in Volume I of 'The Book of the Queen’s Dolls’ House' (1924). And in 1927 Queen Mary bought an illustration of 'King Arthur', ‘The Holy Grail’, from the R.W.S. Summer Exhibition.

​Rackham’s work had long had its supporters at the Royal Academy (‘I have a great admiration for it personally,’ Sir Edward Poynter, P.R.A., had told him in 1916 when urging him to contribute to a special exhibition for the Red Cross). In 1922 he allowed Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton to put him down for election as an ‘Associate Engraver’, but, not surprisingly, he lost the ballot to that great engraver H. Macbeth-Raeburn by 26 votes to 11. ‘Draughtsmen’, as such, were not then admissible as Associates of the Academy. Rackham’s candidature may have done something to settle the question of their eligibility for the engraving section, but the rules were not changed until after Rackham’s death, and Edward Bawden is still (1960) the only ‘draughtsman’ so elected.

There is no reason to suppose that Rackham was disturbed by this reverse. Apparently he did retain to the end of his life the lingering remnant of a frustrated youthful ambition to succeed as a painter in oils; but he had realized when he embarked on his career as an illustrator that he would be unlikely to attain the formal honours of the Academy. As compensation he had enjoyed fame, prosperity and the affection of a very wide circle of admirers, young and old."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.") 

Arthur Rackham: WWI

Illustration by Arthur Rackham

"The outbreak of war in 1914 found Arthur Rackham, approaching his forty-seventh birthday, inundated with work and commissions. The war years did not prove easy for him. The quality of book-production inevitably declined. In 1915 his earnings dropped considerably, though they gradually increased again. He contributed generously to many publications of a patriotic nature – to King Albert’s Book (1914); to 'Princess Mary's Gift Book' (1914); to The Queen’s Gift Book (1915), published in aid of Queen Mary’s Convalescent Auxiliary Hospitals – and he also illustrated 'The Allies' Fairy Book,' which appeared in 1916 with an introduction by Edmund Gosse. And when 'The Allies’ Fairy Book' was published, Gosse wrote to Rackham (6th November 1916): 

 

‘Will you think me impertinent if I tell you how beautiful I think your illustrations. … Their variety, and ingenuity, and the delicacy of your fancy, and the romantic ardour of your mind, were never more victoriously manifested. I am proud to be associated – though to so humble a degree – in a work so charming.’

It was typical of Rackham that he should not be content with serving his country as an artist. Like Keene in an earlier emergency, he had to serve also as a man. A self-caricature on the fly-leaf of a copy of 'The Queen’s Gift Book,' which he gave to his sister-in-law Ruth Rackham, shows him standing at ease with oriental inscrutability in the grey cotton uniform of the Hampstead Volunteers. Mr Gilbert Foyle writes of those days:

‘I was then (1915) Sergeant Major of the Company, and it was great fun to see him endeavouring to do the “Army Drill”. He found difficulty in 'forming fours', and at rifle drill was a scream. But he was a good recruit, and did his best to please and to learn. He enjoyed ​going with the Company on Sundays to dig trenches in Essex, near Chelmsford.'”

 

To be continued

 

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.)

Arthur Rackman: A Leading Illustrator

"Brünnhilde the Valkyrie" by Arthur Rackham 

"On 31st January 1910, the Authors’ Club paid Arthur Rackham the compliment of entertaining him at dinner in Whitehall Court. The occasion served to emphasize his standing as the leading illustrator of the day, and was reported to the extent of a column and a half in the 'Morning Post.' A large gathering applauded his ‘random thoughts of an illustrator’. The artist knew, said Rackham, that ‘for his illustrations to be worth anything he must be regarded as a partner, not as a servant’.

‘…An illustration may legitimately give the artist’s view of the author’s ideas; or it may give his view, his independent view, of the author’s subject. But it must be the artist’s view; any attempt to coerce him into a mere tool in the author’s hands can only result in the most dismal failure. Illustration is as capable of varied appeal as is literature itself; and the only real essential is an association that shall not be at variance or unsympathetic. The illustrator is sometimes expected to say what the author ought to have said or failed to say clearly, to fill up a shortcoming, and not infrequently he has done so. Sometimes he is wanted to add some fresh aspect of interest to a subject which the author has already treated interestingly from his point ​of view, a partnership that has often been productive of good. But the most fascinating form of illustration consists of the expression by the artist of an individual sense of delight or emotion aroused by the accompanying passage of literature.’ 

His work was exhibited almost annually at this time in one or other of the cities of Europe. He won a gold medal in Milan as early as 1906. In 1912 he won a medal at Barcelona and held a special exhibition in Paris of his Wagner drawings at the invitation of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, which made him an Associate and awarded him another gold medal. Works by Rackham were acquired for the galleries at Vienna and Barcelona, and for the Luxembourg, Paris. He had admirers from all over the world."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")
 

Arthur Rackham: To Benefit the Children

Arthur Rackham Illustration from "Undine"

"Arthur Rackham had become a public figure. Writers, well-known and less well-known, continually invited him to illustrate their works; but, as his time was pledged for years ahead, they were usually disappointed. He was now the father of a small daughter, Barbara, born in 1908, and the descendant of schoolmasters spoke out to insist that children deserved only the best in art. He gave an encyclopaedia his credo in the matter of children's art:

‘I can only say that I firmly believe in the greatest stimulating and educative power of imaginative, fantastic, and playful pictures and writings for children in their most impressionable years – a view that most unfortunately, I consider, has its opponents in these matter of fact days. Children will make no mistakes in the way of confusing the imaginative and symbolic with the actual. Nor are they at all blind to decorative or arbitrarily designed treatment in art, any more than ​they are to poetic or rhythmic form in literature. And it must be insisted on that nothing less than the best that can be had, cost what it may (and it can hardly be cheap) is good enough for those early impressionable years when standards are formed for life. Any accepting, or even choosing, art or literature of a lower standard, as good enough for children, is a disastrous and costly mistake.’

 

Barbara was to find him a good father in all sorts of ways, a really interesting and knowledgeable guide to books, museums, corners of London, and so on – and of course always ready and eager to draw anything and everything on demand. When as a child she ran into his room in the morning, he would first feel on the bedside table for his spectacles, then under the pillow for his gold hunter watch; flicking it open, he would look at the time – ‘Too early – go back to bed for – er – forty minutes!’ or ‘All right – in you come, Rabbits!’ He made a complete stage set and characters for Cinderella for her German toy theatre. He was fond of all inventive games, and never minded being invaded in his studio, in fact people and conversation around him never disturbed him while he was working. Barbara would often watch him at work, sitting at his drawing desk, with a paint brush in his mouth while he used a pen, or vice versa, making the weird grimaces of his characters as he drew them – a fascinating performance for a child. ​

 

As a return for all this entertainment, Barbara, in course of time, had to pose for her father. ‘Go on – get over there – bend over and pick up an apple,’ he would say; ‘hold your skirt out with the other hand – put your leg further in front, no, the other one – and now twist round towards me and shake your hair over your shoulder – that’s it – now stay still.’ And then, after what seemed an eternity – ‘All right, you can drop the pose – but now get up on that chair and see if you can be another child throwing the apples down from the tree.’"

To be continued

 

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.)

Arthur Rackham: Alice in Wonderland

From "Alice in Wonderland," illustrated
by Arthur Rackham

"Arthur Rackham’s next undertaking after Peter Pan was the most controversial of his whole career. This was nothing less than a fresh illustration of 'Alice in Wonderland,' a work so completely identified with the drawings by John Tenniel that it seemed to many critics almost thought it blasphemous for anyone to attempt to prepare alternatives. As soon as it became clear, however, that a spate of new illustrated editions was being planned to follow the expiry of the original copyright (in fact, at least seven appeared in England in the first possible year, 1907), it was surely not to be regretted that an artist of Rackham’s quality had taken up the challenge. ​

Rackham’s model for Alice was Doris (Jane) Dommett, who told the story of her sittings to the Evening News (14th December 1939) after Rackham’s death.

‘He chose me from a number of little girls,’ ​said Miss Dommett, ‘and I was so pleased he copied my print frock exactly, because it was one my mother had allowed me to design myself. The woollen stockings I wore were knitted by my old French nannie Prudence. They were thick, to keep out the cold, and how they tickled!’ In the mad tea-party picture she sat in Rackham’s big wing-back chair, and the table was laid with Mrs. Rackham’s best china. The Rackhams’ kitchen, and their cook, contributed to the kitchen scene. Miss Dommett remembered asking doubtfully: ‘Will she throw plates?’ ‘Oh, no,’ said Rackham, ‘they’ve been broken already.’ He had actually thrown a few to get the detail right.'

Rackham certainly made the greatest impression of all Tenniel’s multitude of successors. The Rackham volume is still in print with Heinemann (1960) and the illustrations have appeared in American, French and German editions. The drawings were successfully shown at the Leicester Galleries. Nevertheless, Rackham was somewhat shaken and disappointed by the amount of adverse criticism he received, and he did not proceed to illustrate 'Through the Looking-Glass,' although Macmillan (Lewis Carroll’s original publishers) offered in 1907 to produce his illustrations of the Looking-Glass before the copyright had expired, in a uniform edition with Heinemann’s Alice – a remarkable gesture of confidence."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.) 

Arthur Rackham: The House on Englands Lane

16, Chalcot Gardens, Englands Lane with
Arthur Rackham standing on the balcony

"The Rackhams’ first joint home was at 3, Primrose Hill Studios, Fitzroy Road (near Primrose Hill), but he was soon able to move to an attractive, unusual, high-gabled house at 16, Chalcot Gardens, Englands Lane, which had been built in 1881 and enlarged in 1898 by W. Voysey. The back of the house was mostly taken up by two large studios, one used by Mrs. Rackham, and the other by Rackham himself. From this upper studio a spiral staircase ran down into the peaceful garden with its trees. 

The studio was full of curiosities, and for many years it usually contained a large Persian tabby-cat, called ‘Sir James’ after Barrie, who would put a stop to all work when he brought his comb to be groomed every afternoon. ‘There is nothing disappointing about the little house in Chalcot Gardens,’ wrote Eleanor Farjeon in an article. ‘Outwardly it is not unsuited to the pages of fairy tale. It has a mellow red-and-brown charm, and is the kind of house that could very well have been built of gingerbread and candy. Behind the house is the kind of garden that makes me feel six years old again. …’

When he married, Rackham was earning considerably less than a thousand pounds annually, but he soon reached and passed that figure, and from 1907 onwards his earned income fluctuated for many years between £1,500 and £3,500. In one remarkable year (1920) he earned £7,000. He soon found that he could rely on heavy royalties from his books, and also that he could sell his originals at good prices, especially if they were in colour (it proved worth while for him to add colour to his black-and-white drawings for this purpose). He was able to save and he invested his savings carefully; while his steady support of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution showed that he was always mindful of those less fortunate than himself." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.) 

Arthur Rackham: Peter Pan

"Fairies Tiff with the Birds" from "Peter Pan"
by Arthur Rackham

"V.M. Lucas had hinted in his letter of March 1905, congratulating Arthur Rackham on the Rip Van Winkle exhibition, at J. M. Barrie's interest in his work and at the prospect of his undertaking illustrations for 'Peter Pan'. It was not intended that he should illustrate the famous play, successfully produced for the first time the previous Christmas and not published until 1928, but rather those chapters from that rambling book 'The Little White Bird' (1902) which had introduced Peter Pan to the world, though in a form very different from that in which he is seen on the stage. Rackham could have found no subject more immediately topical, or more fashionably propitious. 'Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, as he re-created it, and as it appeared from Hodder and Stoughton with fifty full-page illustrations in colour mounted on thick paper according to the taste of the time, became the outstanding Christmas gift-book of 1906 – and maintained its hold for many later Christmases. 

Rackham worked steadily on the book for the next year, making many sketches in Kensington Gardens, and then wrote to propose another meeting at which he could show the author his finished pictures. He found Barrie pre-occupied by the illness of his friend Arthur Llewelyn Davies:

‘Dear Mr. Rackham, I am so much at present with a friend who is dangerously ill that I have not seen my letters till now, so kindly excuse this delay in answering. I want so much to see the pictures, and thank you heartily for your letter. Could you come on Wednesday about six o’clock? I shall be here if this suits you. Yours sincerely, J. M. Barrie’ 

The illustrations that followed were a great success. The critics were enthusiastic in their praise. For example, the 'Pall Mall Gazette' wrote:

‘Not the least part of that good fortune that follows Mr Barrie’s steps is his choice of an illustrator. Mr Rackham seems to have dropped out of some cloud in Mr Barrie’s fairyland, sent by a special providence to make pictures in tune to his whimsical genius.’ Rackham’s friends and fellow illustrators were genuinely delighted at his success. ‘It may be that your pictures are a craze, that people have lost their heads and that the dealers are keeping the thing up – it may be!’ wrote Harry Rountree. ‘All I know is that I am as intoxicated as the worst and I am certain that this drunkenness will last for ever. … Long live Rackham!’ At the same time, it is only fair to mention that there were one or two critics who were more doubtful, who sneered at these ‘children’s books’ that were designed for the drawing-room rather than the nursery (probably true, though they were appreciated in both quarters), and who obscurely resented the luxurious pages, the tissue fly-leaves, the ‘fluttering prints each half-mounted on a sheet of brown paper in approved collector-fashion’.

Barrie himself wrote him: 'I am always your debtor, and I wish the happiest Christmas, and please, I hope you will shed glory on more of my things. Yours most sincerely, J. M. Barrie'

His achievement in the contemporary convention of illustration was a superb one; and the collectors’ demand for his books, here and in America, has shown it to be lasting."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.") 

 

Arthur Rackham: Rip Van Winkle

Illustration from "Rip Van Winkle"
by Arthur Rackham

"Arthur Rackham had exhibited successfully at the Royal Academy, at the Institute of Painters in Water-Colours, at a ‘Loan Exhibition of Modern Illustration’ at South Kensington (1901), and at various provincial exhibitions before he was elected an Associate of The Royal Water-Colour Society in February 1902 (he became a full member in ​1908). He received considerable encouragement to pursue his individual style of decorative illustration from the Friday evening meetings of the Langham Sketching Club, of which he was chairman for two consecutive years, 1905–6 and 1906–7, a sure proof of his popularity with his fellow artists, for the chairman was elected primarily to preside at the supper table. His ‘Windfalls’, now in the Melbourne National Gallery, and ‘Cupid’s Alley’, now in the Tate Gallery, were both painted in 1904; ‘The Magic Carpet’ was bought for the Bradford Gallery in 1907 and ‘Treasures of the Deep’ for the Preston Gallery in 1909. But the first work that greatly advanced his fame in the years immediately following his marriage was his edition of 'Rip Van Winkle, with its fifty-one colour plates, published in 1905.

This lovely book decisively established Rackham as the leading decorative illustrator of the Edwardian period. One does not know which to admire most – the superb artistry of his landscapes, the poetry of the scenes of Rip by the riverside, the charm of his children and fairies, or the grotesque groups of Henrick Hudson and his crew. With Rip Van Winkle he began his fruitful association with the firm of William Heinemann, who issued the book in a limited edition and a trade edition, while American, French, German and other foreign editions were also called for, setting a pattern of publication to be followed for many years. Another profitable precedent was established by the exhibition of the originals at the Leicester Galleries in March 1905. All except eight of the pictures were sold, and the deluxe edition of the book was fully subscribed before the exhibition closed. Henceforth Rackham’s book illustrations were regularly exhibited at the Leicester Galleries at the time of their publication, and they found ready buyers.

E.V. Lucas, a popular English writer, was one of those who wrote to him at this time:

‘Dear Mr. Rackham, ‘I have at last been able to get to your exhibition; which I enjoyed immensely. Hitherto one has had to go to the Continent for so much mingled grace & grotesque as you have given us. The drawings seem to me extraordinarily successful & charming. The only thing I quarrel with is the prevalence of 'sold' tickets – one on every picture that I liked best. [James] Barrie tells me he has the same grievance. I am glad to hear that you think of treating Peter Pan in the same vein. Believe me yours sincerely, E.V. Lucas'"

To be continued

 

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

Arthur Rackham: A Happy Marriage

"Edyth Starkie" Self-Portrait

"Arthur Rackham's wife, Edyth Starkie, with a smooth pink-and-white complexion, unlined to the end of her life, with wide-open Irish blue eyes ever full of mischief, her hair snow-white from an early age, was the antithesis of him in character. She had a charm which made everybody like her and many people love her. If she was not conventionally beautiful, she gave the impression of beauty. She made her friends laugh without ever really saying anything particularly witty, and she could give great comfort by her sympathy and understanding. Servants and tradesmen adored her. An original experimenter in interior decoration, she was keen on new ideas of all kinds, with a passion for motoring and later for the wireless. She would launch herself into daring arguments in favour of free-love or Communism – but entirely theoretically, for she herself lived the mildest and strictest of lives. ‘I rather like bad people but I can’t stand bad art’ – that phrase has seemed to her daughter to sum up exactly her attitude to life.

By the time that she met Arthur Rackham, who was two months older than herself, Edyth Starkie already knew much of the world. When she was sixteen, her mother took her on a tour of Europe. They stayed for a time in Paris, where Edyth studied art, and then went on to Germany, where she became engaged to a Prussian officer at Potsdam, causing a major scandal when she broke off the engagement. After her father’s death, she settled in Hampstead with her mother.

Arthur Rackham admired her not only as a woman but also as an artist, who was then achieving a considerable reputation as a portrait painter. Her pictures are intensely individual and sincere. They are remarkable for their deep sense of character. She was a member of the International Society; works by her were bought for the National Museum, Barcelona, where she won a gold medal in 1911, and the Luxembourg, Paris. ​Although her career was broken by ill-health, she was an artist to be remembered with honour.

It will be readily understood, then, how much Rackham owed to his wife, who was married to him at St Mark’s, Hampstead, on 16th July 1903. His alliance with this artistic Irishwoman brought out the best in Rackham; for she was always his most stimulating, severest critic, and he had the greatest respect for her opinion. In return he gave her unswerving loyalty and devotion, so that the marriage, despite its temperamental ups-and-downs, proved a very happy one."

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

Arthur Rackham: A Bent for Fantasy

"Self-Portrait" by Arthur Rackham

"Arthur Rackham received strong encouragement to follow his natural bent for fantasy from his fellow artist and future wife Edyth Starkie, whom he met about the year 1900 when she and her mother were neighbours of his in Wychcomb Studios, Englands Lane, Hampstead. Her nephew Walter Starkie’s earliest memories of Rackham date from that year. Walter had arrived from Dublin, aged six, on a visit to his grandmother. ‘My first impression of the painter was coloured by the fairy stories my aunt Edyth told me at bedtime,’ he writes:

‘His face was wizened and wrinkled like a ripe walnut, and as he peered short-sightedly at me out of his goggle spectacles I thought he was one of the goblins out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Dressed in his shabby blue suit and hopping about his studio in his carpet slippers, he reminded me of Rumpelstiltskin, but when he was armed with palette and paint brushes he became for me a wizard, who with one touch of his magic wand could people my universe with elves and leprechauns. He would take me out for walks over Primrose Hill or in Kensington Gardens where he would sketch the trees, and as he worked he would ​tell me stories of gnomes who lived in the roots and churned butter out of the sap flowing from the knotted branches.’

This may have been an exaggerated view of Rackham at the age of thirty-three, but it is true to say that in appearance he had aged rapidly – his, after all, was a life of intense application. The clear-cut, earnest, distinguished features above the high collar (as we see them in many early photographs) soon became deeply grooved; he lost his hair young; except in bed, he was never without steel or gold-rimmed spectacles, of which he owned a great variety – reading spectacles, spectacles for tennis, bi-focal spectacles. He remained a neat, alert person, tidy, energetic, punctual. 

Amateur theatricals were for many years a persistent interest; in 1900 he played Blore the butler in Pinero’s 'Dandy Dick,' and he also designed the scenery and acted in performances of Gilbert and Sullivan. He kept himself fit with lawn tennis and exercise on a trapeze. He was active and precise in all he did, whether working or playing, in which there was really little difference since he enjoyed his work and took his play seriously. If he grew slightly balder, more wrinkled and silvery during the years, this hardly altered his general appearance."

To be continued 

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")
 

Arthur Rackham: The Brothers Grimm

The True Sweetheart: “The third time,
she wore the star-dress which sparkled
at every step.” by Arthur Rackham

"The first year of the new century marked a turning point in Rackham’s career, for in it were published his original illustrations for Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm -  ninety-nine drawings in black and white with a coloured frontispiece. The book was immediately successful, and its publication marked the beginning of Rackham’s lasting fame. Two new editions were called for within ten years. 

At intervals from 1900 onwards Rackham worked on the original drawings, partially or entirely redrawing some of them in colour, adding new ones in colour and in black-and-white, and generally overhauling them as a set, the final and best-known edition, of 1909, contained forty coloured illustrations and fifty-five line drawings. Rackham wrote to Frank Redway on 28th May 1914: ‘In many ways I have more affection for the Grimm drawings than for other sets. (I think it is partly one’s childhood affection for the ​stories.) It was the first book I did that began to bring success (the little, earlier edition, that is)….”

In this letter Rackham touches on one important reason for his triumph as an illustrator of the classics – his very thorough knowledge of the texts. Though he was completely faithful to his authors, there was nothing of slavish pedantry in his interpretations; the personal and imaginative always transcended the literal. A comparison between the first and the last editions of his Grimm emphasizes the remarkable progress that Rackham made in a decade; yet the earlier drawings that he allowed to stand can hold their own with the later ones. 

A reviewer of the enlarged book in the Westminster Gazette of 1909 enlisted the help of two small boys to make another point that told strikingly in Rackham’s favour: ‘When it came to the contemplation of Mr Rackham’s drawings there was never a second’s hesitation. They understood them at once, and entirely.’"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

Arthur Rackham: On to Book Illustrations

Illustration from "Undine" by Arthur Rackham

"When Arthur Rackham was asked to contribute to a symposium on ‘The Worst Time in My Life’, he said that for several years at the beginning of his career he had had far from an easy time, but added that the Boer War ‘was a very thin time indeed for me, and may be considered the worst time I have ever had’. Rackham had little liking or aptitude for the sort of journalistic work then in demand, and realized, moreover, that the camera would soon largely supplant the artist in illustrated journalism. His financial success as an illustrator, though merited and overdue, was also a matter of practical necessity. 

So from 1893 onwards Arthur Rackham became increasingly occupied with book illustrations. His first published book (1893) was a travel brochure, 'To The Other Side' by Thomas Rhodes, now very scarce, for which he provided black-and-white drawings in the careful rounded style of his early watercolors. The drawings included views of Salt Lake City and San Francisco; of the Sentinel Rock, Yosemite, the Royal Gorge and Pike’s Peak, all based on photographs. 

More interesting than any of these early efforts were Rackham’s four halftone illustrations and cover design for the first edition in book form of 'The Dolly Dialogues' by Anthony Hope (1894), which had originally appeared without illustrations in the 'Westminster Gazette.' These drawings, stilted as they were, served to link Rackham’s name for the first time with a work of literary merit.

His work in the ’nineties displayed versatility and experiment. He was developing as a remarkable draughtsman. His pencil studies of old men show him to have learned from Charles Keene. Aubrey Beardsley had become another considerable influence, and with him the whole German school from Dürer to Adolph Menzel and Hans Thoma. The fanciful and poetic element gradually supplanted the conventional as Rackham’s technique developed."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

 

Arthur Rackham: A Conventional Illustrator

'Famine' from The Westminster Budget, 10 November 1893

"Throughout 1891 Arthur Rackham's work proved increasingly acceptable to the 'Pall Mall Budget.' In 1891 and 1892 there were few weeks in which his drawing was not represented in that paper. He sketched in the shops and in the streets of London, in the railway stations, at the theatres, in the churches, at the zoo, and at Burlington House on ‘sending-in day’. He was ready to make excursions to the country or the seaside, and in July 1891, his drawings of ‘A Little Holiday in Belgium’ with his friend Walter Freeman filled two pages of the P.M.B. The humours of cockney cabmen or ‘Winter Bathing in the Serpentine’ alternated with funeral tributes to the Duke of Clarence or C. H. Spurgeon.

‘Sketches from the Life’ of public personalities became one of his specialities, and these appeared more frequently after he left the insurance office in 1892 and joined the staff of the 'Westminster Budget.' His work was published regularly for the next three years. The larger format of the 'Westminster Budget' gave him new scope; his drawings of well-known contemporaries became a popular feature, and in retrospect, form a remarkable record of life in the ’nineties. Ready to go anywhere and ​illustrate anything for his paper, Rackham portrayed many of the leading actresses, sportsmen, writers, and politicians of the day. The Queen and Mr. Gladstone were among his most frequent subjects. He was often called upon to celebrate royal occasions.

For the most part his work at this time was conventional and unimaginative – in striking contrast to the work by which he is best known – but already he was demonstrating his mastery of line. An artist so deft and conscientious was an asset to the Westminster Budget. And there were moments, as with his disquieting full-page fantasy ‘The Influenza Fiend’ (1893), which unmistakably foreshadowed the fanciful and at times weirdly imaginative illustrator that he was to become." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

Arthur Rackham: An Art Education

‘The king could not contain himself for joy.’
The Fairy Tales of the Brothers
Grimm; a drawing of 1907 by Arthur Rackham.

"In the autumn of 1884 Arthur Rackham entered the Lambeth School of Art. But there was no question of his art studies occupying the whole of his time. He had to prove his ability and work his way. So in addition to his studies, throughout the next seven years, from 1885-1892, Rackham sat on his stool in an insurance office. He also sent occasional contributions to the cheaper illustrated papers. His first crude published drawings had appeared in 'Scraps' of 4th October 1884, illustrating the thesis: 'Mothers in Ceylon have a curious way of preventing their children from eating too much. A fine thread is tied round the child before it commences its meal, and when the thread breaks, the child is considered to have had enough.'

We are fortunate in having his own reminiscences of this strenuous period in the office and the art school in a letter to an aspiring artist:

Dear Mr. Dawe, I was much interested by your letter and it will need rather a long letter to answer it satisfactorily. You appear to be in much the same case as myself in having to go out into the world & earn your living at the age of 17 (and for the next seven years or so I worked as hard as I could outside of business hours (9-5) to equip myself as an artist - not being able to embark on a professional career till I was nearly 25 & then for many years getting the barest living from my profession & having to do much distasteful hack work.)

This is my advice: Stick to your business. Go as regularly as you can with enthusiasm to a school of art. Among other things you will be associating & measuring yourself with the men who will be your professional companions later on & you will be able to estimate your relative powers (remembering that if 2 or 3 in the school at any one time are ever heard of as artists in 10 or 20 years time, it is about as much as you can expect. Then in 5 or 6 years you may find that your proved ability justifies you in joining the ranks of professional artists. And if, it doesn't, you will be far happier living by your business, and practicing art as an enthusiastic amateur than as a disappointed, pot-boiling professional."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work by Derek Hudson.")

Arthur Rackham: Beginnings

"Fairy Procession" by Arthur Rackham

"It would make an unusual beginning if Arthur Rackham's biographer could state with confidence that he was descended, however remotely, from a pirate. Though this is indeed the case, Arthur Rackham was born into a typical middle-class Victorian family of the best sort. The father, himself a man of distinction, had at least three unusually distinguished sons - Arthur, Harris and Bernard. Additionally, there were nine other siblings as well.  

As a child, Arthur showed a precocious talent for drawing, and especially for fantastic subjects. Put to bed early, he smuggled paper and pencil with him and drew while the daylight lasted. When this was forbidden, he still managed to hide his pencil and draw on the pillows. A note to Arthur from his grandmother when he was nine congratulated him on a letter which was 'very nicely written' and had obviously been freely illustrated with caricatures. 'The sketches are from life I suppose,' she wrote back, 'Well, you have not made any of you very handsome!'

He entered the City of London School at the age of twelve, September 1879, and endeared himself to his masters by his humour and character, and by his precocious talent for drawing, which earned him the school prize (a portrait of himself by Herbert Dicksee, the drawing master, which seems not to have survived).

With all his high spirits, Arthur was a delicate boy, and a doctor recommended that he leave school and accompany two family friends to Australia. During the outward and homeward voyages, and during his three-month stay in Australia, he painted many creditable watercolours. Vesuvius, Capri and the Suez Canal were among his subjects, but his chef d'oeuvre was a 'Panoramic View of Sydney from Nature,' dated May 1884. He arrived back in London in July with his health entirely re-established, and the long sea voyage, with its ample opportunities for sketching, had quite decided him to be an artist.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.) 

George P. A. Healy: Dedicated to the End

"Orestes Brownson" by George Healy

"The painter, so young in spirit, had aged without being really aware of it. A newer kind of art was asserting itself. My father, who had always been pleased to help his young brother artists, still made them cordially welcome at his home, and went to see their works, and, in all sincerity, praised them. He used to say to us, 'You little know how much talent it takes to paint even a poor picture.' His kindness was not always met in the same spirit in which it was proffered. It became the fashion among the younger artists to disparage his work. He was hurt to the heart, though no one ever heard him complain.

This, perhaps, had much to do with his sudden resolution to return to America, and so he and his family left Paris for Chicago in February, never to return. The move proved to be a wise one. He was received by his old and his new friends with such enthusiasm that he was much pleased and greatly touched. Home life in his own house was peacefully resumed. Once more he worked daily. Once more he received his friends with the cordial simplicity peculiar to himself. He thus had two happy years among those who loved and appreciated him. Then, very quietly, he passed away June 24th, 1894. To his eldest daughter, who stood at his bedside and who asked him whether he was comfortable, he answered, 'Yes, and happy - so happy!'

My father's talent was an unequal one. His best portraits are admirable for intensity of life, for fresh and natural color, for strong drawing. The large historical picture of Webster replying to Hayne in Faneuil Hall; the portrait of Brownson, which belongs to the Boston Art Museum, the group of Armenian bishops which he gave to the Art Institute of Chicago; several portraits of himself, an adorable series of children's heads - these would be enough to consecrate him as a great artist.

Unfortunately, at times, he worked too rapidly, carried away by his extraordinary facility. Many paintings thus hastily produced are unworthy of him. Moreover, toward the end of his life, his clear, keen vision was marred. He no longer saw colors as they were. This he never suspected, and he continued to paint until his brush fell from his weakened hand. It has been the fashion for the last twenty years of more, to pick out these inferior works as representative of his style. This is eminently unfair. Those who loved him can afford to wait. The time will come when all will agree that one of America's best portrait painters was George P. Healy."

(Excerpts from "Life of George P. A. Healy" by Marie Healy Bigot.)

George P. A. Healy: His Character

"Mrs. Freida Schiff Warburg"
by George Healy

George P. A. Healy's daughter, Marie, also wrote a biography of her father. In the concluding chapters she remembered his character: "The first trait in my father which stands out is the extraordinary power of work, which in his case lasted from early youth to old age. As a boy, without a master, he taught himself to paint, simply by painting from morning to night. Still very young, he had to provide for his family - and he did it. All through life, care of others was an incentive to labor, but he really needed no incentive. 

Work was his life, his joy, his pride. He always rose with the dawn and generally long before. During the silent hours he wrote his letters; he 'cleared the decks for action,' as he himself said. Then he made use of every moment of daylight to paint, with or without a model. We have no record of the number of portraits painted during his first year in Chicago. But from his diary, which he only kept quite late in life, we learn that from November, 1880, to May, 1881, he produced forty-six portraits. 

In the midst of his incessant labor he was often so overcome with fatigue as to be unable to sleep. From his youth upward he had suffered with his eyes, which yet must have been remarkably strong to have withstood the strain he put upon them. 

And no man was ever more unhappy during enforced holidays. He liked to travel occasionally, but only where he could find picture galleries; and in these he would single out one or two masterpieces and remain in contemplation before them for hours.

I have elsewhere spoken of my father's kindness and generosity, or his happiness when he could help others. As he himself was truth and honesty in person, he could not conceive treachery or untruthfulness in others - or forgive the offenders. He was, from the first to the last, the most devoted and loving of husbands. The mutual tenderness of my parents, their absolute confidence in each other, was a subject of admiration - sometimes of wonder - to others. When the old painter at last let drop his brushes, he was content if our mother sat by his side, restless if she left him. And when he died she wandered about like a lost soul, longing for the end."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life of George P. A. Healy" by Marie Healy Bigot.) 

George P. A. Healy: Longfellow and Liszt

"Longfellow and Daughter" by George Healy

"When I stayed in Rome for some time, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with his daughters, spent some months in the Eternal City. He was then a splendid-looking man, with perfectly white hair and beard. His eyes were bright and expressive. I painted a group of himself with one of his daughters, a very young girl with golden hair. The contrast was a very telling one.

In my studio the picture he looked at most often was a large portrait of Franz Liszt seatered at his piano. I had recently painted it, and I told the poet how, during the sittings, Liszt had played for hours at a time. I showed him casts I had taken of the musician's hands. These greatly interested him, for they were extraordinary - thin, nervous and well shaped; revealing much of the man's passionate, unquiet, earnest nature.

List had his lodging in an old convent close to the Forum. Longfellow expressed a desire to see the great musician, and as I had remained on good terms with my sitter, I asked permission to present the American poet to him.

One day toward sundown, we drove together to ring at Liszt's private entrance. It was already quite dark in the vestibule, the door of which was opened by means of an interior cord. Liszt himself came forward to greet us, holding a Roman lamp high up, so as to see his way. The characteristic head, with the long iron-gray hair, the sharp-cut features and piercing dark eyes, the tall, lank body draped in his garb, formed to striking a picture that Mr. Longfellow exclaimed, 'My. Healy, you must paint that for me!'

Our visit was most agreeable, for no man was more fascinating than Liszt. He played for us on his fine American piano, with which he was delighted. Taking advantage of this amiable time, I told him how much we had both been struck by his appearance as he came toward us, light in hand. He willingly consented to sit, and I made a small picture, as exact a reproduction as possible of what we had seen, and which gave great pleasure to Longfellow."

To be continue

(Excerpts from "Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter" by G. A. P. Healy.)