Arthur Rackham (British book illustrator) 1867 - 1939
"The Man in the Wilderness", 1913
ink and watercolour drawing, mounted, framed and glazed
27 x 18.4 cm.
signed lower right
private collection
Catalogue Note Sotheby's
One of thirteen colour plates reproduced within Mother Goose (Heinemann, 1913). The illustration accompanies the rhyme
The man in the wilderness asked me
How many strawberries grew in the sea.
I answered him, as I thought good,
As many as red-herrings grew in the wood.
The frame includes labels from the 1913 Leicester Galleries exhibition (with some loss) and part of the original backing of the artist's board including Rackham's title and address in his own hand.
* * *
Rackham was born in London as one of 12 children. In 1884, at the age of 17, he was sent on an ocean voyage to Australia to improve his fragile health, accompanied by two Aunts. 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.
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