I’ve described in (too much?) detail what this encyclopedia set is about, just follow the link and there you’ll also find an outline of the contents for the 10+ volumes.
Today I want to concentrate on Volume Two (and Three and Four – although, here I’m cheating, see below)
The reason for sharing these images below is to highlight artists and illustrators whose work has been forgotten, or ignored for many years. I know for a fact that some examples of art I’m showing are reprinted from earlier editions of the work – some that were colour plates became black and white.
Francis Ernest Hiley was born on 12 February 1878, in Gloucestershire and died in Redhill on 20 December 1965, and was very prolific, his work appearing in The Strand magazine where he illustrated many of Conan Doyle’s stories. He drew images for books published by Blackie and Son, Jarrold and Sons and many others. A fuller biography by Robert J. Kirkpatrick appeared on Steve Holland’s blog.
Hiley’s work here covers stories from Ancient Greece – where he drew 8 illustrations and shared the limelight with others such as….
John Harris Valda (1874-1942) was born in Marylebone, London, his father had studied with John Millais but the son was no slouch, creating the first British school of art to teach illustration – and only aged 21 at the time! He went on to join Amalgamated Press illustrating for the text stories of Union Jack, Champion, The Bullseye and many others. I think he’s best remembered from his drawing Sexton Blake illustrations for 10 years. Read more at the Look and Learn archive and follow their link to many images by Valda.
The third artist to help provide drawings for this section on the Greeks and Romans was “Lance”
Could this be Marjorie Lance (1900-1967)? I am not all all sure as the only artwork by this Marjorie Lance, I can find, shows a long tail underlining the rest of her signature whereas the above shows a long tail on the ‘E’. And, of course, it could be the artist’s first name not their surname! Could it be Lance Cattermole?
You might have seen artwork by both C.E. Brock and H.M. Brock, but their brother Richard Henry Brock was just as prolific and talented. He was born in Friern Barnet on 21 July 1871 and died on the Bulstrode Road on 11 June 1943. His career covered many of the well-known early 20th century periodicals. Robert J. Kirkpatrick again has a fuller biography.
We then get T. H. Robinson
Thomas Heath Robinson (19 June 1869– February 1953 or 1954) was an English illustrator just like his younger siblings, Charles and W. Heath, who was born in Islington. After the death of his wife in 1940 he moved to St. Ives in Cornwall and passed away in February 1954, aged 84.
Project Gutenberg has a few books which you can download in which Robinson’s illustrations appear and Look and Learn have some pictures too.
The nice thing about a clear signature it does give me a chance to compare artworks identified with the same name. Thus I found Harry Wooley. Born in Lancashire in 1880, he died near Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1959, aged 78. Gordon Howsden has written a sketchy biography – but that gets us started. In addition to Abebooks and the British Library, Stella and Rose’s Books can be helpful when they identify artists.
R. H. Penton (whose work is at the top of this article) is Richard Howard Penton (1882-1960). there are 254 hits returned in the London Metropolitan Archives catalogue of his work – mainly landmark buildings, but he was known – as here – as a marine and landscape artist.
Louis Ward (1913-2005) was a painter, illustrator and teacher, born in Bristol, where he settled in Clifton. He was an ordained parish priest who studied theology at Ripon Hall, Oxford. Also studied full-time at West of England College of Art, Bristol. He taught part-time at Bristol Polytechnic’s arts faculty. Showed RWA of which he was a member, in Bristol’s Arnolfini Gallery, Arts Council and elsewhere. Did a variety of book and magazine illustration. Member of Bristol Savages club. RWA and Bristol City Art Gallery hold his work (David Buckman, (1998) Dictionary of artists in Britain since 1945. Bristol : Art Dictionaries). Apparently his painting of Christ in Gethsemane hangs in the Lady Chapel of Bristol Cathedral
Stanley Reginald Harry Rogers (7 May 1887 – 21 January 1961) was a British and American writer, illustrator, and maritime historian. Born in Nottingham, raised in Washington, and educated in London, he was based in London and New York during his career.
Lastly an old favourite Edward Osmond
Edward Osmond (1900-1981) won the Carnegie Medal award for his 1953 self-penned and illustrated book “A Valley Grows Up” which has multiple double page colour plates showing the changes in a fictitious valley from Prehistoric times, Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, Norman, Early and Late Medieval, Elizabethan, Georgian and finally Victorian times. But Osmond started illustrating much earlier than that and the wonderful FictionMags Index shows he drew in the November 24 1920 issue of the The Illustrated London News and then more drawings for The Royal Magazine, Pall Mall Magazine, Nash’s Magazine and The Strand Magazine – and this was all in the 1920s! He continued – at least till the late 1950s, in such magazines as The Windsor Magazine, The London Magazine, The Passing Show, Pearson’s Magazine, Britannia and Eve, Everybody’s, The Wide World Magazine, and John Bull. He illustrated a version of Black Beauty in 1932 and produced drawings up to at least 1973. There’s a nice biography on ArtUK‘s site
EVIDENCE OF PUBLICATION DATE
- Page 271 mentions the General Election of May 1955 “with the result that the Conservatives were returned to power”.
- Page 424 states Doctor Alain Bombard’s Atlantic raft journey began “October 20th 1956 and ended St. Martin in the Lesser Antilles 72 days later” – i.e. December 31 1956!
- Page 448 – the final page states “In May [1957] the Suez Canal was declared free from all obstructions and open again to the world’s shipping”
So it looks as if this edition of Newnes Pictorial Knowledge was published some time after May 1957
VOLUME THREE
This volume is not of much interest to me as it’s all photographs rather than illustrations. The contents are:
- The story of the world and its people – Great Britain and Ireland
- The story of the world and its people – Countries of the British Commonwealth and nations
- The story of the world and its people – Lands near and far, of our colonial empire
VOLUME FOUR
This volume again has mostly photographs. But one artist that managed to squeeze in is Ellis Silas
Ellis Luciano Silas (13 July 1885 – 2 May 1972) was a British artist and draughtsman who served as an ANZAC during the First World War. On return from Australia to the UK, he drew magazine illustrations for Chums from 1925-1928 and also drew for Boy’s Own Paper and Blackie and Son.
Next: – VOLUME FIVE: Meteorology and what it means – the rain, the snow, the winds and the tides; Our engineers and their work; The stories that scientists can tell us – about heat, light and sound; How steam and petrol work for man; Fable, myth and legend
Visual Rants 