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The Man
Arthur Rackham was a prolific artist from an early age, taking his paintbox with him on trips to museums and smuggling a pencil and paper into bed with him at night. After creating dozens of landscape watercolors during a trip to Australia in 1884, he was inspired to pursue art more seriously and enrolled at the Lambeth School of Art. While taking evening classes, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and as a freelance illustrator for magazines such as Scraps, Chums, and the Pall Mall Budget. Only after seven years was he able to give up his position in the insurance office and work full time as an illustrator in 1892 at the Westminster Budget, where he drew sketches of social functions and royal events.
His first solo commissioned work came in 1896 with The Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch, a children's book by S. J. Adair Fitzgerald that was published by J.M. Dent. More book assignments followed during the 1890's, with dozens of pictures for two major children's magazines, Cassell's and Little Folks. Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1900) was an immediate success, and other major successes quickly followed, including the 1905 edition of Washington Irving's classic Rip Van Winkle, which firmly established Rackham's reputation. From then on, practically every year saw a new Rackham publication with similarly lavish binding, plentiful color plates, and frontispieces produced for the Christmas market. By showing and selling original art at the Leicester Galleries in London, Rackham was able to add to his reputation and increase his income.
After the tragedy of the First World War, the market for illustrated books changed in Britain as the public lost interest in fantasy and fairies. Wood engravings and woodcuts were back in fashion, with their lower production costs and realist, often stark views of the world, and Rackham found himself precariously on the outskirts of the "limited edition group." Demand for his expensive books declined, and he expanded into the American market. By 1920 nearly half his earnings came from America. His American success continued from 1922 to 1925, with the drawings he completed for the Colgate Company advertising Cashmere Bouquet Soap, his largest single commission for the US. Thirty drawings on the theme of the early English aristocracy were done to advertise the soap, and they were exhibited in art galleries and museums throughout America, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Over the course of his career, Rackham developed his distinct style consisting of pen strokes and subdued colors in light washes. His work reflects a convergence of influences, recalling the linear skill of Aubrey Beardsley and the amassed detail of Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Edward Burne-Jones. The elves, fairies, and tortured trees that feature in his fantasy worlds are also reminiscent of the Germanic illustrative tradition associated with artists such as Moritz von Schwind. Although he has often been pigeonholed as simply a painter of fairies and fantasy, Rackham's work is better appreciated as
a continual interplay between captivating juxtapositions -- man and animal, the human and the mythological, the familiar and grotesque, and the delicate and the austere.
It is clear that Rackham was somewhat tormented by his decision to become a commercial artist. Looking back on his life, he lamented about beginning life with "two fixed purposes" -- illustrating books and painting traditional landscapes and portraits -- and being forced to maintain the success he started to receive in the "lesser aim" of illustration. Yet despite the limitations of his success, Rackham dutifully attended to his fans, always replying to their letters with thoughtfulness and even giving in on occasion to requests from people pleading to buy a book or drawing at a reduced price. Rackham also seems to have genuinely enjoyed his work and appreciated the fame it brought him. He proudly took on the role of illustrator and felt strongly about the role of illustration in relation to its accompanying text, arguing that the illustrator "should give free rein to his vision of the author's purpose." Having published more than 3,300 individual images and decorations, not including his magazine and miscellaneous work, Rackham has left generations of readers with insights into his enchanting visions. |