Life
Arthur Rackham was born as the fourth of twelve children by Alfred Thomas and Anne Rackham on September 19, 1867.
Alfred Thomas Rackham served as a clerk in the Registry of Admiralty Court and eventually became an appointed Admiralty Marshal at the high court of justice. right to the end of his life, he believed in the possibility of being a descendent of infamous pirate John Rackham who was hanged in Jamaica in 1720.
Arthur studied at the City of London Scholl from 1879 to 1884. He was one of the most talented artists of the generation, respected as a sketcher and painter, getting a few awards by the way. After that, he went to Australia for a four months-long trip. The main reason was his poor health but the ultimate impact was probably his definitive entry into the world of watercolor painting. He loved to draw since tender age but his family didn't support his artistic inspirations. When they took the paper away from him, he even drew on walls and pillows.
After return to England, Arthur Rackham followed the instructions of his father and got a job in Westminster Fire Office as a junior clerk. But he also took evening lessons of drawing at the Lambeth School of Art and later enrolled in Miller's Lane, then the biggest art school around. After a while, he started drawing for different newspapers and magazines. He slowly and steadily built a reputation as a reliable and versatile artist. His remarkable talent was not showing yet at the time and it was probably his ability to adapt which pushed him forward. Another important lesson coming from his work for journals was developing an eye for detail.
In 1888 one of his paintings from Australia was accepted by the Royal Academy of Arts and sold yet he kept his day job until 1892 when he got a position at Westminster Budget Magazine as a full-time employee. He stayed there for an additional four years creating pretty conventional drawings with rare dazzles of his creative imagination. From these drawings, we can easily conclude he preferred line illustration to other techniques like tone and was drawings. He also worked for other papers like Scraps and The Pall Mall Budget but real chance showed for him only at book illustrations.
The reasons to change his focus from newspapers to books were at least two. Photography was developing very rapidly and it was obvious the need for illustrators in papers will be reduced soon. At the same time, the printing technique was better and better, clearly leading to full-color printing as a standard for books. Photographic techniques were introduced into the printing process eliminating clumsy woodworking and enabling the reproduction of tender lines of artists like Rackham as they were done by the artist, not an engraver's approximation.
Influences
We already noticed Rackham learned more from his work than in schools. Studying works by already established masters contributed even more to the development of his style. Pre-Raphaelites, Howard Pyle, Daniel Maclise, Charles Robinson, and J. F. Sullivan were among the most influential ones. We should probably mention Richard 'Dicky' Doyle, too, yet it would be wrong to pick just a few artists when Rackham's style ultimately became the fusion of many traditions with modern techniques. The first impression of his illustrations on the observer without previous knowledge is very likely the magic of his colors, the effect achieved by adding layer after layer of transparent colors but above all, he became one of the best line artists of all times. We can even say his pictures are like line drawings for coloring books executed by skilled and artistically self-confident grown-ups, yet essentially still coloring books.
While his first participation at book illustrating (A Dog's Mission by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Frerryman's Boy by Crona Temple may or may not be his work), a cover for The New Fiction of 1895 and collaboration at To the Other Side by Thomas Rhodes, following by The Dolly Dialogues, 1894 and Sunrise Land, 1894, stayed relatively unnoticed, his next two (The Ingoldsby Legends, 1898 and Tales from Shakespeare, 1899) paved his way to wide recognition. About a decade later, when he was already an established illustrator and one of the most popular artists in the world, both were reprinted with additional illustrations and in luxurious versions.
In 1900 he got a huge commission - The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm which is now considered as his breakthrough work. Since then he was in constant demand and his earnings were higher and higher. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm was also reprinted several times, also with additional illustrations (the first edition had only one colored frontispiece), and in different versions, often just a selection of some of the stories from the first publication. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm from 1909 (with 40 (!) colored pages) by Rackham, especially signed one, is a classic work with huge potential for collectors.
An additional source of income became exhibitions of his original paintings (he liked to create pictures twice as bigger than they appeared printed what gave him a chance for more details in the compositions) which were often sold out in a few days after the opening. His books were published in different formats, as standard, Quattro, and deluxe editions, in expense versions numbered and signed by Rackham. He had more quirks, sometimes entering the bookstores and signed the books which he then returned to the shelves or buying books for his friends with adding an extra hand-made illustration.
In 1900 he also married Edyth Starkie, another talented painter with whom he had a daughter Barbara who later served as a model for many of the characters in his books. Rackham liked to include objects from his environment to the imaginary worlds he illustrated. He also portrayed his own face on more or less important characters in his books.
In the next two decades, he produced numerous illustrations for all-time classics as Gulliver's Travels, Aesop's Fables, The Night Before Christmas, or Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen. He exhibited all over the world. In the 1930s his and his wife's health declined. The volume of his creations declined as well. Arthur Rackham's last completed project was The Wind in the Willows, a very sentimental decision for him because he already turned down the offer of illustrating that book three decades ago due to the deadline for A Midsummer Night's Dream.
He died in 1939 and although as a late bloomer is now considered one of the most influential illustrators of all time.
