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.)