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The Little Folks
Though Arthur Rackham is associated primarily with his illustrations for luxury gift books with subdued color washes, he first built his reputation through his unique strength in black and white. The early years of his career involved the production of freelance illustrations for magazines, including Little Folks and others that were published by Cassell & Co. From 1896 to 1905, Rackham's illustrations for stories in Little Folks allowed him to develop his skills as a draftsman and his enthusiasm for working in line, which is still apparent when he started adding color to his illustrations.
His early years as a freelance black-and-white illustrator perhaps explain his continued penchant for trees, roots, wrinkled faces, and spider webs -- forms that allowed Rackham to experiment with line and are drawn with both delicacy and vitality. Although Rackham struggled financially during his early career, the reprinting of illustrated stories from Little Folks in book form, including the collections The Land of Enchantment (1907) and The Book of Betty Barber (1910), helped build Rackham's reputation as an illustrator with versatility and a talent for producing humorous and fantastical pictures. |