Arthur Rackham

Arthur Rackham
Born	19 September 1867(1867-09-19) Lewisham, London, England
Died	6 September 1939(1939-09-06) (aged 71) Limpsfield, Surrey, England
Nationality	English
Field	Children's literature

One of Rackham's illustrations to Das Rheingold, depicting Fasolt and Fafner seizing Freia.

Arthur Rackham (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939) was an English book illustrator.

Biography

Rackham was born in London as one of 12 children. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art.

In 1892 he left his job and started working for The Westminster Budget as a reporter and illustrator. His first book illustrations were published in 1893 in To the Other Side by Thomas Rhodes, but his first serious commission was in 1894 for The Dolly Dialogues, the collected sketches of Anthony Hope, who later went on to write The Prisoner of Zenda. Book illustrating then became Rackham's career for the rest of his life.

In 1903 he married Edyth Starkie, with whom he had one daughter, Barbara, in 1908. Rackham won a gold medal at the Milan International Exhibition in 1906 and another one at the Barcelona International Exposition in 1912. His works were included in numerous exhibitions, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914. Arthur Rackham died in 1939 of cancer in his home in Limpsfield, Surrey.

Technique

Rackham invented his own unique technique which resembled photographic reproduction; he would first sketch an outline of his drawing, then lightly block in shapes and details. Afterwards he would add lines in pen and India ink, removing the pencil traces after it had dried. With colour pictures, he would then apply multiple washes of colour until transparent tints were created. He would also go on to expand the use of silhouette cuts in illustration work.

Typically, Rackham contributed both colour and monotone illustrations towards the works incorporating his images - and in the case of Hawthorne's Wonder Book, he also provided a number of part-coloured block images similar in style to Meiji era Japanese woodblocks.

Influence

In one of the featurettes on the DVD of Pan's Labyrinth, and in the commentary track for Hellboy, director Guillermo Del Toro cites Rackham as an influence on the design of "The Faun" of Pan's Labyrinth. He liked the dark tone of Rackham's gritty realistic drawings and had decided to incorporate this into the film. In Hellboy, the design of the tree growing out of the altar in the ruined abbey off the coast of Scotland where Hellboy was brought over, is actually referred to as a "Rackham tree" by the director.

Notable works

• The Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch by Shafto Justin Adair Fitzgerald (40 line, 1896)
• Two Old Ladies, Two Foolish Fairies, and a Tom Cat by Maggie Browne (pseud. Margaret Hamer) (4 colour plates, 19 line, 1897)
• Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (95 line, 1900, reworked edition 40 colour plates, 62 line, 1909)
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (11 line 1900, reworked edition 12 colour plates, 34 line, 1909)
• Rip van Winkle by Washington Irving (51 colour plates, 3 line, 1905)
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (13 colour plates, 15 line 1907)
• The Ingoldsby Legends by Thomas Ingoldsby (pseud. Richard Harris Barham) (12 colour, 80 line 1898, reworked edition 23 colour plates, 73 line 1907)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (40 colour plates, 34 line, 1908)
• Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (1909)
• Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (15 colour plates, 41 line, 1909)
• The Rhinegold and The Valkyrie by Richard Wagner(34 colour plates, 8 line, 1910)
• Siegfried and The Twilight of the Gods by Richard Wagner (32 colour plates, 8 line, 1911)
• Aesop's Fables by Aesop (13 colour plates, 82 line, 1912)
• Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J.M.Barrie (50 colour plates, 3 line, 1906, new edition 50 colour plates, 12 line, 1912)
• Mother Goose (13 colour plates, 78 line 1913)
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (12 colour plates, 1915)
• The Allies Fairy Book (12 colour plates, 23 line 1916)
• Little Brother and Little Sister by The Brothers Grimm (13 colour plates, 45 line 1917)
• The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Alfred W. Pollard (23 colour and monotone plates, 16 line, 1917)
• English Fairy Tales by Flora Annie Steel (16 colour plates, 43 line, 1918)
• The Springtide of Life by Algernon Charles Swinburne (8 colour plates, 1918)
• Some British Ballads (16 colour plates, 23 line, 1918)
• Cinderella ed. Charles S. Evans (1 colour plate, 60 silhouettes, 1919)
• The Sleeping Beauty ed. Charles S. Evans (1 colour plate, 65 silhouettes, 1920)
• Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens (16 colour plates, 20 line, 1920)
• Comus by John Milton (22 colour plates, 35 line, 1922)
• A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne (16 colour plates, 21 line, 1922)
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare (20 colour plates, 20 line, 1926)
• The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith (12 colour plates, 23 line, 1929)
• The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton (12 colour plates, 22 line, 1931)
• Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (12 colour plates, 43 line, 9 silhouettes 1932)
• Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe (12 colour plates, 28 line, 1935)
• Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen (12 colour plates, 38 line, 1936)
• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (16 colour plates, posthumously 1940 US, 1950 UK)

Gallery

• 

  "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman", illustration to a 1918 English Fairy Tales, by Flora Annie Steel

• 

  "How at the Castle of Corbin a Maiden Bare in the Sangreal and Foretold the Achievements of Galahad", from The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, by Alfred W. Pollard, 1917

• 

  "The giant Galligantua and the wicked old magician transform the duke's daughter into a white hind", illustration to English Fairy Tales, by Flora Annie Steel

• 

  "The giant Cormoran was the terror of all the country-side", illustration to English Fairy Tales, by Flora Annie Steel

• 

  "The Three Bears", illustration to English Fairy Tales, by Flora Annie Steel

• 

  "Siegfried awakens Brünnhilde", illustration to Richard Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "Norns weaving destiny", illustration to Richard Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "Brünnhilde is visited by her Valkyrie sister Waltraute", illustration to Richard Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "Alberich speaking to Hagen", illustration to Richard Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "Rhinemaidens warn Siegfried", illustration to Richard Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "Siegfried kills Fafner", illustration to Richard Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "The Rhinemaidens try to reclaim their gold", illustration to Richard Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "The Twa Corbies", illustration to Some British Ballads

• 

  "One day they were overheard by a fairy", illustration of Maimie and Tony in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

• 

  A Valkyrie from Wagner's The Ring

• 

  "‘O waken, waken, Burd Isbel", from Young Beichan, Child ballad number 53

External links

• Works by Rackham (archive.org)
• Works by Arthur Rackham at Project Gutenberg
• Arthur Rackham and his art
• Biography Online Gallery Ephemea freely downloadable at Fairyworx,Part of the Golden Age of Illustrators Collection
• Arthur Rackham's illustrations for Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends
• Innovated Life Art Gallery: Select illustrations by Arthur Rackham, biography and contemporary reviews
• The Illustrators Project: Arthur Rackham; contains a bibliography
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
• Arthur Rackham art at Art Passions (free online gallery)
• SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages: Fairy Tale Illustrations of Arthur Rackham
• Arthur Rackham artwork at American Art Archives web site
• Complete Arthur Rackham Collection for 'The Ring of the Nibelung'
• Information about Arthur Rackham and his art