A Mad tea-party, not a Mad Hatter...

Did you know... that Carroll never uses the phrase mad hatter? The readership has adopted that term over the years. It was the party, that was described as a mad tea-party...






Well, this is a nice development. A few topics on deck, and my latest Dover "image collection" comes in a bit ahead of the latest predictions.... so I find myself with the new material to give you a glimpse of, and a leg up on next entry. All good.

I will admit, that when Dover asked me about doing a collection of illustrations focusing on Lewis Carroll's Alice, though I knew there was a lot of good material to look over, I wasn't sure I'd find enough to keep me interested. It didn't take long before I realized that these few volumes full of over-the-top imaginative stories provide some outstanding material to interpret, and many of my illustration heroes had—well—gone down that hole.

The spark for this project was a chance meeting almost two years ago, with Mark Burstein—President of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. Mark's knowledge of Carroll's work and the depth of his own collection made him a great partner for this volume. Not only did Mark provide a great introduction to the book, but he was able to guide us to some rare material, and lend us a few editions to work from that otherwise might have been unattainable. Kudos to you, sir.

In all there are images from 16 different illustrators of Carroll's works. From a selection of Sir John Tenniel's work in the original editions, to Arthur Rackham and a wide array of Golden Age art, and finishing up with some great wood engraving by contemporary artist/illustrator Barry Moser.

Shown here, top to bottom, A. E. Jackson, Charles Folkard, A wonderfully eerie ink piece by Charles Robinson, Gwynedd Hudson, (who also did the image chosen for the volumes cover, shown as well) and a wondrously different "ginger" Alice, by Mabel Lucie Attwell.

A Brandywine Moment

Some weeks ago I was tooling down I95 on the east coast, bringing my son to school in Baltimore after his Winter break. (I know! I can't believe I'm old enough to do that either!) Here was a golden opportunity to see one of the exhibits I've been waiting for, actually for years. The Howard Pyle show that marks a century since his passing. It was practically on our way, and I was not about to just pass by. I'd been making some noise about it, so everyone in the car knew we would be there for a bit.

The Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, was founded in 1912 with the purpose of gathering and housing Pyle's work. It has become one of the premier museums in the country concerning Illustration, and they have a nice handle on Pre-Raphaelite works as well. I've seen a lot of Pyle's works over the years, and I'm familiar with a broad swath of his imagery— I was keen to see what might surprise me there.

Most of the important works are there, Attack on a Galleon, Marooned, and one on my favorites, The Flying Dutchman. I still can't get over the size of that piece, it's enormous, almost 6' tall! It's obvious that some pieces he did for love of painting, and some were assignments. Here's two that caught me off guard.

The first is a piece —the Angel—I used to close my Dover plate book on Pyle. Why seek Ye, the Living Among the Dead? is a real exercise in contrasts and value control. What surprised me was that the original, as photographed here, is so much lighter overall than the reproductions I've become familiar with. Another was this image in gray, or en grisaille, (Pyle and others painted this way sometimes to better suit works to be interpreted by engravers) from Hawthorne's Wonder Book (Stay tuned for more on that ...) The edition with the Pyle illustrations is quite scarce, and I hadn't had a chance to see these before. The light in the piece When All the World was Young was phenomenal, it absolutely glowed from across the gallery room. There is a homestead in the distance at the furthest visible point, very specific, I imagine it must be an actual location. Any ideas?

The show is at the Delaware Museum until March 4th, when it travels north to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., (where I will undoubtedly see it again) June 9th to October 28th. The book that accompanies the exhibit may be the best book on Pyle's work to date, I highly recommend it.

————

Lots to come in the next few weeks...including the new collection Alice Illustrated—back shortly.

A master watercolorist rediscovers Wonderland

1907 was a HUGE year for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Originally published in 1865, Carroll's copyright was up in 1907. (copyright at that time was not the near-century of protection it can be today) The popularity of the tale meant nearly every major publisher in Britain, and many in the US, had a new illustrated edition in the works. The most anticipated one at the time, was that of Arthur Rackham. Rackham's success in the gift-book market was already solid, and it remained to see how his Alice would hold up against the ingrained images of Alice's first artist, Sir John Tenniel.
After the flurry of 1907 releases hit the markets, one notable edition arrived a year later. (Probably due to the magnitude of the task) In 1908, an edition published by Thomas Nelson and Sons (London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York) was released, with 92 full color illustrations by Harry Rountree (1878-1950). 92 color pieces. Rountree was an incredibly deft watercolorist. Unlike Rackham, Edmund Dulac or many others of the day, Rountree did not always rely on a solid line for his watercolor to fill (or did so rarely)—his style was different—His paintings often take true advantage of the watercolor as a medium, and display a sense of light that few other illustrators before him had captured. He also had the ability to present more realistic settings, without losing any of the charm that his characters portrayed . I am still in awe of the fact that this was in fact, a full-color print run, in 1908.
There are a few reasons why more of us are not familiar with this brilliant edition. The full-color run made it an expensive purchase in 1908. With a half a dozen editions out the previous year, most households that would be interested already held a new copy of Alice, and many of those would not be interested in a second one. The added delay of the full-color production would prove a costly one. Later printings featured some of the art, but rarely all of it—and Rountree would do two other editions of Alice in his career, but neither would contain this amount of color.
The edition today is prized among Alice collectors, and it did elevate Rountree's status in the market even further, putting his future on very solid ground. Rountree's animal work was to be the mainstay of his career in illustration. He was active in both books and magazines. Born in New Zealand, he came to London in 1901, and after an initial struggle, became part of the wave of success that period publishing brought illustrators of the day.

When considering which edition of Alice to bring to the Calla imprint, The Rountree Edition—due to its rarity, the brilliant full-color images, and the sheer depth of them—made me a strong backer for its joining the list. The Calla Edition is scheduled for a September release.

The Story of Wicked Tim
digital version of a 1914(ish) Rountree book

And some Rountree work currently available through the Chris Beetles gallery, in London.