VOLUME TEN: This is the reference volume for the set, containing the A-Z Factual Index and “Our world today”.
This volume has predominantly three columns with a dictionary approach. The above opening page changes things slightly as it has called this “Children’s Treasury of General Knowledge”
Who is “H. K.”?
The first artist’s work I wish to highlight is well disguised.
Each section begins with an illustration of that letter. So here we see A, C and J. So who is the artist? Hidden in the images are the initials “HK”. Could this be Horace Knowles, (mentioned here) but he usually signs his work in full. I also felt some of this artwork was a bit ‘naive’, just look at the animal top-left on the letter J page, which I guess is a jackal. . Knowles was, I felt more competent than this. Just look at his own “Countryside Treasures” as an example. The work is stylised but competent. So who is HK?
GEORGE HORACE DAVIS (1884-1963)
GHD, G. H. Davis etc. has been mentioned when discussing Volume Six, so I’ll leave this here as I liked the clarity of the explanation and also his lovely signature with the ‘D’ enclosing his surname.
I also loved this cutaway of a London street! Note that it’s dated 1949 which makes one wonder about the claim “Specially drawn for this work” as it’s surely a reprint from an earlier edition!
ANTHONY WOOD (1925 – 2022)
I’m afraid I had NOTHING on Anthony Wood in any of my usual sources. Looking at the above and the image below, we can see he may have been a technical artist of some sort, and I nearly drew a blank! But then I thought to search for Anthony Wood + Heraldry and that came up trumps. His Wikipedia page tells me he was “a professional calligrapher, illuminator and heraldic artist”
H. M. BROCK (Henry Matthew Brock) (1875-1960)
I can’t add anything to HM’s biography and have already said he is famous enough not to need my rants but researchers of his work might like to know his work appears in this volume.
ERNEST ARIS (1882-1963)
Like Brock above, Aris needs no introduction. His work appears in many of this set of 10 books and the two above appealed to me. What a versatile artist!
CYRIL COWELL (1888-1967)
I chose these two pieces by Cyril Cowell as 1) it allows me to say he does two other maps in this volume – South Africa, Canada, and the above NZ and 2) his work appears in Volumes 5, 6, 8 and here Volume 10, amongst others. To read more about him follow the link.
CONCLUSION
As I said in the first posting on this set of encyclopedia, there are two accompanying volumes – an atlas and a dictionary which I don’t own. So here’s where I finish this series. Just as, with a lot of what I do on this blog, I’ve only shown what interests me – either the art itself, or the hunt for information. If you’ve read this far and – for example – are tracking down all instances of one these artist’s works, this is a good set to check…and there are multiple editions unfortunately! I tripped over an early set (with Enid Blyton’s name) and found no Raymond Sheppard artwork – my main reason for buying this 10 volume set – but did see some familiar artwork .
Thanks for all the comments, and do let me know if you discover who some of these artists are whom I’ve not been able to pin down
Norman
Visual Rants 