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.")