Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work/Chapter 4

by Derek Hudson

CHAPTER FOUR

Peter Pan and Alice

ucas had hinted, in his letter of March 1905, congratulating Rackham on the Rip Van Winkle exhibition, at J. M. Barrie’s interest in his work and at the prospect of his undertaking illustrations for Peter Pan. It was not intended that he should illustrate the famous play, successfully produced for the first time the previous Christmas and not published until 1928, but rather those chapters from that rambling book The Little White Bird (1902) which had introduced Peter Pan to the world, though in a form very different from that in which he is seen on the stage. Rackham could have found no subject more immediately topical, or more fashionably propitious. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, as he re-created it, and as it appeared from Hodder and Stoughton with fifty full-page illustrations in colour mounted on thick paper according to the taste of the time (see pages 67, 69, 73, 75), became the outstanding Christmas gift-book of 1906 – and maintained its hold for many later Christmases. The pattern of publication continued as before, with a limited edition, a trade edition, an American edition, and a French edition (1907) of Piter Pan: Les Jardins de Kensington.

The initiative in commissioning these drawings came from Messrs

Ernest Brown and Phillips of the Leicester Galleries, who arranged a meeting between Rackham and Barrie for a preliminary discussion in June 1905:

 

 

‘Dear Mr Rackham,

‘Let us say about five o’clock on Thursday as that day suits you. I shall expect you then at Leinster Corner, which is the first house past Lancaster Gate in the Bayswater Rd. It’s round the corner.

‘Yours sincerely,

J. M. Barrie’

 

Rackham worked steadily on the book for the next year, making many sketches in Kensington Gardens, and then wrote to propose another meeting at which he could show the author his finished pictures. He found Barrie pre-occupied by the illness of his friend Arthur Llewelyn Davies:

 

 

‘Dear Mr Rackham,

‘I am so much at present with a friend who is dangerously ill that I have not seen my letters till now, so kindly excuse this delay in answering. I want so much to see the pictures, and thank you heartily for your letter. Could you come on Wednesday about six o’clock? I shall be here if this suits you.

‘Yours sincerely,

J. M. Barrie’

 

A few months later he gave Rackham some last-minute advice about

‘He would sit on a wet rock and fish all day.’ Rip Van Winkle, 1905:
a drawing of 1904.

the map of Kensington Gardens which appeared on the front end-paper:

 

 

‘Dear Mr Rackham,

‘The sheep shearing nowadays is done where I put the cross (behind the cottage at that point.) Fairies Basin south of Baby Walk.

‘I haven’t seen a dummy book but H. & S. sent me some specimen pictures which I liked hugely.

‘Yours sincerely,

J. M. Barrie’

 

In the next two letters Barrie referred to the exhibition of Rackham’s Peter Pan pictures at the Leicester Galleries:

 

 

‘Dear Mr Rackham,

‘Unfortunately I am going out of town Sat^y till Monday, otherwise I shd have accepted your invitation with much pleasure. However I have accepted a proposal from the Gallery to go in & see the pictures before the opening day. May it all be a great triumph for you.

‘Yours sincerely,

J. M. Barrie’

 

 

‘My dear Rackham,

‘It was immensely good of you to put that delicious little picture in my copy of “Peter”. I have been a wreck with colds & coughs for

‘A company of odd-looking persons playing at ninepins.’ Rip Van Winkle: a drawing of 1904.

six weeks which is why I have not written you sooner, especially about the exhibition. It entranced me. I think I like best of all the Serpentine with the fairies, and the Peter in his night-gown sitting in the tree. Next I would [sic] the flying Peters, the fairies going to the ball (as in the “tiff” & the fairy on cobweb) – the fairies sewing the leaves with their sense of fun (the gayest thing this) and your treatment of snow. I am always your debtor, and I wish the happiest Christmas, and please, I hope you will shed glory on more of my things.

‘Yours most sincerely,

J. M. Barrie’

 

The critics were largely of Barrie’s view in the matter, as, for example, the Pall Mall Gazette: ‘Not the least part of that good fortune that follows Mr Barrie’s steps is his choice of an illustrator. Mr Rackham seems to have dropped out of some cloud in Mr Barrie’s fairyland, sent by a special providence to make pictures in tune to his whimsical genius.’ Rackham’s friends and fellow illustrators were genuinely delighted at his success. ‘It may be that your pictures are a craze, that people have lost their heads and that the dealers are keeping the thing up – it may be!’ wrote Harry Rountree. ‘All I know is that I am as intoxicated as the worst and I am certain that this drunkenness will last for ever. … Long live Rackham!’ At the same time, it is only fair to mention that there were one or two critics who were more doubtful, who sneered at these ‘children’s books’ that were designed for the drawing-room rather than the nursery (probably true, though they were appreciated in both quarters), and who obscurely resented the luxurious pages, the tissue fly-leaves, the ‘fluttering prints each half-mounted on a sheet of brown paper in approved collector-fashion’. They would have agreed with David Bland in The Illustration of Books (1951) that for all Rackham’s skill in using the three-colour (or four-colour) process and drawing for it with pen and

‘Old Mr Salford was a crab-apple of an old gentleman who wandered all day in the
Gardens.’ Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, 1906
(by courtesy of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd).

water-colour – the care that he took to achieve faithful colour reproduction was extraordinary – his Edwardian books were ‘more distinguished by their opulent appearance than by any bookish quality’. This criticism cannot be brought to bear on the exquisite black-and-white work with which Rackham decorated the text pages of these and later books. If there is some truth in it, the fault lay not with Rackham but with the fashion of the time. His achievement in the contemporary convention of illustration was a superb one; and the collectors’ demand for his books, here and in America, has shown it to be lasting.

The Peter Pan book was a landmark in the life of Rackham’s nephew, Walter Starkie, who writes of it:

 

‘Whereas Rackham’s illustrations of Washington Irving’s tale fascinated me by their quaint touches of Dutch-American realism in contrast with the eerie atmosphere of the mountains and the ghostly figures playing bowls, Peter Pan became the consecration of my childhood, for I had watched my uncle’s sensitive and agile paintbrushes people those trees with dwarfs and gnomes, and he had often drawn the children’s map of Kensington Gardens before taking me on the Grand Tour through what Sir James Barrie called “the pleasantest club in London”. Although we children went again and again to the theatre to see the play, it was through the Rackham illustrations of Kensington Gardens and the Serpentine that Peter Pan still lived in our memories. (At school, however, Gentleman Starkie became my “bête noire”, for I was forever known as “miserable Starkie”). Years afterwards my uncle introduced me to Sir James Barrie after a performance of Dear Brutus and it was the beautiful actress Faith Celli’s inspired acting that brought back all my childhood memories of those illustrations, for Faith Celli was the embodiment of the Arthur Rackham heroine.’

‘The Serpentine is a lovely lake, and there is a drowned forest at the bottom of
it.’ Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (by courtesy of
Hodder and Stoughton Ltd).

The Rackhams’ first joint home was at 3, Primrose Hill Studios, Fitzroy Road (near Primrose Hill), but he was soon able to move to an attractive, unusual, high-gabled house at 16, Chalcot Gardens, Englands Lane, which had been built in 1881 and enlarged in 1898 by W. Voysey. The back of the house was mostly taken up by two large studios, one used by Mrs Rackham, and the other (which Maxwell Ayrton added for him) by Rackham himself. From this upper studio a spiral staircase ran down into the peaceful garden with its trees. The studio was full of curiosities, and for many years it usually contained a large Persian tabby-cat, called ‘Sir James’ after Barrie, who would put a stop to all work when he brought his comb to be groomed every afternoon. ‘There is nothing disappointing about the little house in Chalcot Gardens,’ wrote Eleanor Farjeon in an article. ‘Outwardly it is not unsuited to the pages of fairy tale. It has a mellow red-and-brown charm, and is the kind of house that could very well have been built of gingerbread and candy. Behind the house is the kind of garden that makes me feel six years old again. …’

When he married, Rackham was earning considerably less than a thousand pounds annually, but he soon reached and passed that figure, and from 1907 onwards his eared income fluctuated for many years between £1,500 and £3,500. In one remarkable year (1920) he earned £7,000. He soon found that he could rely on heavy royalties from his books, and also that he could sell his originals at good prices, especially if they were in colour (it proved worth while for him to add colour to his black-and-white drawings for this purpose). He was able to save and he invested his savings carefully; while his steady support of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution showed that he was always mindful of those less fortunate than himself.

Rackham’s next undertaking after Peter Pan was the most controversial of his whole career. This was nothing less than a fresh illustration of Alice in Wonderland, a work so completely identified with the drawings by John Tenniel that it seemed to many critics almost

Above, the house at 16 Chalcot Gardens, Hampstead, with Rackham on a balcony:
a photograph taken in autumn 1913. Below, Houghton House, near Arundel;
Rackham’s studio is on the left of the picture.

blasphemous for anyone to attempt to prepare alternatives. As soon as it became clear, however, that a spate of new illustrated editions was being planned to follow the expiry of the original copyright (in fact, at least seven appeared in England in the first possible year, 1907), it was surely not to be regretted that an artist of Rackham’s quality had taken up the challenge. Even The Times, in the course of an unfavourable review, recognized that Rackham ‘feels his privilege and his responsibilities’, but this critic, obsessed by Tenniel, found Rackham’s humour ‘forced and derivative’ and discovered ‘few signs of true imaginative instinct’ in his work. A stranger wrote at once to sympathize: ‘I felt I must express my indignation at the injustice of the “Times” criticism. However, I am certain that Time is on your side, and that nothing but prejudice prevents your superiority being recognised now. Your delightful Alice is alive and makes by contrast Tenniel’s Alice look a stiff wooden puppet.’

‘I’ll fetch you ladies a chair apiece’ … The quintessence of all charwomanhood. W.B., 1894.

‘“Preposterous!” cried Solomon in a rage.’ Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (by
courtesy of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd).

This went much further than Rackham would have done, for he had no wish to set himself up against Tenniel. He would have been well content with the verdict of the Daily Telegraph, that it would be fortunate for Lewis Carroll’s memory if his masterpiece encountered ‘no less inspired interpreters than Mr Arthur Rackham’. When Punch published a hostile cartoon by E. T. Reed, another illustrator, H. M. Brock, told Rackham that he was ‘disgusted’.

 

‘It seems to me like a piece of exceedingly bad taste, to say nothing of its unfairness. … Of course, you were prepared for everyone to say that no one could ever approach Tenniel etc. – they always do in such a case – but it seems to me that if comparisons – always “odorous” – must be drawn, they might be done decently. I should like too, to say how much I personally like your drawings. I would not have missed them in spite of all that Tenniel has had to say on the subject. …”

 

Brock’s opinion coincided with the general verdict on Rackham’s Alice. He has certainly made the greatest impression of all Tenniel’s multitude of successors. The Rackham volume is still in print with Heinemann (1960) and the illustrations have appeared in American, French and German editions (see pages 77 and 79). The drawings were successfully shown at the Leicester Galleries. Nevertheless, Rackham was somewhat shaken and disappointed by the adverse criticism he received, and he did not proceed to illustrate Through The Looking-Glass, although Macmillan (Lewis Carroll’s original publishers) offered in 1907 to produce his illustrations of the Looking-Glass before the copyright had expired, in a uniform edition with Heinemann’s Alice – a remarkable gesture of confidence.

Rackham’s model for Alice was Doris (Jane) Dommett, who told the story of her sittings to the Evening News (14th December 1939) after Rackham’s death. ‘He chose me from a number of little girls,’

‘Fairies never say, “We feel happy”: what they say is, “We feel dancey”’ Peter Pan
in Kensington Gardens (by courtesy of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd).

said Miss Dommett, ‘and I was so pleased he copied my print frock exactly, because it was one my mother had allowed me to design myself. The woollen stockings I wore were knitted by my old French nannie Prudence. They were thick, to keep out the cold, and how they tickled!’ In the mad tea-party picture she sat in Rackham’s big wing-back chair, and the table was laid with Mrs Rackham’s best china. The Rackhams’ kitchen, and their cook, contributed to the kitchen scene. Miss Dommett remembered asking doubtfully: ‘Will she throw plates?’ ‘Oh, no,’ said Rackham, ‘they’ve been broken already.’ He had actually thrown a few to get the detail right.

 

The illustrations for A Midsummer-Night’s Dream (see pages 81, 85, 89), exhibited at the Leicester Galleries and published by Heinemann in 1908, and also in American, French and German editions, were much

The Blackwall tunnel: ‘our artist equipped for the tunnel’. A self-portrait of 1894.

‘A Mad Tea Party.’ Alice’s Adeventures in Wonderland, 1907.

less controversial in theme than Alice, and their success was ungrudged, though Rackham’s art was now receiving a measure of that severe scrutiny which comes to every artist who is popular with the general public. Rackham cast his spell over the play; his drawings superseded the work of all his predecessors from Gilbert to Abbey, and for fifty years have enriched the imagination; his conception of Puck and Bottom, Titania and Oberon, Helena and Hermia, his gnarled trees and droves of fairies, have represented the visual reality of the Dream for thousands of readers. Here he excelled especially in landscape, and in reconciling dream and reality, giving himself to the luxury of rich detail a rare generosity. It is scarcely too much to mention him in the same breath as Mendelssohn; but a contemporary and more exact musical comparison might be made, as Eric Blom has suggested, with the delicate fancy of Roger Quilter.

William de Morgan, in a letter to Rackham, described his Midsummer-Night’s Dream as ‘the most splendid illustrated work of the century, so far’. Rackham’s success with books of this kind was now beginning to attract competitors, one of whom was Edmund Dulac whose drawings for The Tempest followed Rackham’s Dream drawings at the Leicester Galleries in 1908. Rackham’s junior by fifteen years, Dulac had no doubt been influenced by him, but his art was in contrast to Rackham’s in several respects. Dulac’s inspiration was primarily oriental, better suited to the Arabian Nights than to Shakespeare, while Rackham belonged to the Western, even the nordic world; Dulac’s emphasis lay in colour harmonies, while Rackham’s was in line, to which he skilfully added colour washes of transparent tints – a method well suited to reproduction and virtually a personal invention of his own. The appearance of two such gifted artists in this special field gave English illustrated books a world-wide reputation in the years before the First World War.

As Johnson said of Shakespeare, so we may say of King Edward VII: ‘Fairies in his time were much in fashion.’ 1909 was the year that

‘The Queen turned angrily away from him and said to the Knave,
“Turn them over.” ’ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1907.

saw the production of Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird with Norman O’Neill’s music at the Haymarket Theatre – there were suggestions that Rackham should illustrate The Blue Bird, but unfortunately he never did – and in this year Constable issued the final edition of Rackham’s Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Heinemann his illustrated edition of De la Motte Fouqué’s Undine (see pages 91 and 93). Although the waves and eddies of Undine bear the mark of Art Nouveau, the work was still another step forward for Rackham, the unity of conception in the line drawings and the colour plates, the assertion of contrast in the moods of the heroine, rendering it a masterpiece of sympathetic understanding.

Rackham had become a public figure. Writers, well-known and less well-known, continually invited him to illustrate their works; but, as his time was pledged for years ahead, they were usually disappointed. He was now the father of a small daughter, Barbara, born in 1908, and the descendant of schoolmasters spoke out to insist that children deserved only the best in art. The Daily Mirror (24th November 1908) printed photographs of ugly dolls that Rackham had condemned and of pretty dolls that he had approved, and showed a photograph of him and Barbara with a toy rabbit that he thought ‘very good’. Later he gave an American encyclopaedia, The Junior Book of Authors (1934), his credo in the matter of children’s art:

 

‘I can only say that I firmly believe in the greatest stimulating and educative power of imaginative, fantastic, and playful pictures and writings for children in their most impressionable years – a view that most unfortunately, I consider, has its opponents in these matter of fact days. Children will make no mistakes in the way of confusing the imaginative and symbolic with the actual. Nor are they at all blind to decorative or arbitrarily designed treatment in art, any more than

‘Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?’ A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, 1908.

they are to poetic or rhythmic form in literature. And it must be insisted on that nothing less than the best that can be had, cost what it may (and it can hardly be cheap) is good enough for those early impressionable years when standards are formed for life. Any accepting, or even choosing, art or literature of a lower standard, as good enough for children, is a disastrous and costly mistake.’

 

Many of Rackham’s correspondents were children, whose letters he always answered with the utmost courtesy and patience. Three who wrote to him from Kensington in the autumn of 1909 were Betty, Joan and Gilbert Simon, the children of John Simon, K.C., as he then was (Viscount Simon as he eventually became). The young Simons had been reading The Wind in the Willows, which had

A letter from Rackham, 26 October 1909.

recently been published, with only a frontispiece by Graham Robertson as illustration, and they were anxious that Arthur Rackham should illustrate it – particularly the incident of the field-mice singing carols. Rackham’s reply, which is reproduced below, ends with an amusing self-portrait and reveals him as an early admirer of The Wind in the Willows. He had been the author’s choice as the illustrator, but had had to refuse, reluctantly, owing to pressure of other work. Hence the fact that the illustrations most usually associated with Kenneth Grahame’s masterpiece are E. H. Shepard’s. It was not until nearly thirty years later that Rackham got another chance to illustrate The Wind in the Willows, when an American publisher commissioned a delightful set of drawings from him, which have a special charm born of long affection. They are the last drawings he ever made.

A friend who had been another Edwardian child, Margaret Andrewes, tells an anecdote which shows Rackham’s willingness to entertain the young:

 

‘He came to the house when I was a small girl and my parents were out. As usual, he was at once given a sketchbook and paints, and, as usual, asked what he was to draw. Just then my mother came back from a funeral, heard the question and said, “Anything but a funeral”. So Arthur Rackham started with an ant in the bottom left-hand corner of the page, went on to a large area of cobblestones, put in some feet (because the ant must have something to look at), and then the bodies above the feet – two lugubrious figures in black. Then he apologised that it was turning into a funeral and, last of all, put in the little parson in the distance, closing the gates of the cemetery. The result is a most treasured possession. …’

 

Barbara was to find him a good father in all sorts of ways, a really interesting and knowledgeable guide to books, museums, corners of London, and so on – and of course always ready and eager to draw anything and everything on demand. When as a child she ran into his room in the morning, he would first feel on the bedside table for his spectacles, then under the pillow for his gold hunter watch; flicking it open, he would look at the time – ‘Too early – go back to bed for – er – forty minutes!’ or ‘All right – in you come, Rabbits!’ He made a complete stage set and characters for Cinderella for her German toy theatre. He was fond of all inventive games, and never minded being invaded in his studio, in fact people and conversation around him never disturbed him while he was working. Barbara would often watch him at work, sitting at his drawing desk, with a paint brush in his mouth while he used a pen, or vice versa, making the weird grimaces of his characters as he drew them – a fascinating performance for a child.

‘Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.’ A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, 1908.

As a return for all this entertainment, Barbara, in course of time, had to pose for her father. ‘Go on – get over there – bend over and pick up an apple,’ he would say; ‘hold your skirt out with the other hand – put your leg further in front, no, the other one – and now twist round towards me and shake your hair over your shoulder – that’s it – now stay still.’ And then, after what seemed an eternity – ‘All right, you can drop the pose – but now get up on that chair and see if you can be another child throwing the apples down from the tree.’

‘Oscar’, and Miss Marie Tempest. Two drawings from W.B., 11 January 1895.