Tuesday 7 April 2009

The finest illustrator of his day...

We're still here in Belsize - in Chalcot Gardens just off of England's Lane.

It's a truly lovely house and I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that interesting and famous people by definition live in interesting and lovely houses.

Arthur Rackham is pretty unknown by name and yet widely and extensively recognised by his art and art-genre.

He is most famous for his work of book illustrating and his works of Alice in Wonderland and various Grimm borthers works are now considered to be style-setting in their significance.

He is a classic illustrator of the post Victorian, late gothic style and is very much of the turn of the 20th century edwardian era. Some have used his work as a fantasy illustration of the dark clouds before the first world war...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rackham

In addition there is an Arthur Rackham Society http://www.angelfire.com/ar/ArthurRackhamSociety/

and a great range of information on his pre-eminence in that pre-war era http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/rackham.htm

This plaque went up in 1981 as part of the English Heritage blue plaque scheme
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.1494

Arthur was the third surviving child of Alfred and Annie Rackham (nee Stevenson). On 16th July 1903 he married painter Edyth Starkie in Hampstead and they one daughter, Barbara, in 1908. Barbara married to become Barbara Edwards.

During their marriage, Arthur and Edyth maintained separate studios in their home in Chalcot Gardens. In Barbara's memorial article about her father, she commented that her father often used her as a model for form or shape, asking her to "'bend down and imagine you're picking an apple off the ground' or 'try to look like a witch!'"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

He was married in St Saviour's Church, Eton Road.