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Albert Wainwright: Three Portraits
Three images here by Albert Wainwright currently on display at The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Although the two below are very typical of his paintings, and very beautiful and delicate paintings in...
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Shop Window Displays of the 1970s
James Barry Wood's book, Show Windows. 75 Years of the Art of Display yielded a blog post last week on the shop windows of the 1950s that proved very popular so for this second and final post of...
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Faeries in the Dragon Book of Verse by Gillian Alington
I have always had a soft spot for faerie painting, drawing and illustration. So I was charmed today to find these (admittedly not all illustrations of the world of faerie) in an the outwardly...
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Rackham Illustrates Siegfried and the Twilght of the Gods
As a bookdealer it is sometimes possible to become immune to the charms of the popular. There is no doubt about the continued popularity of the big twentieth century illustrators: Rackham, Dulac,...
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Michael Ayrton Dustjackets for Peter Green
Peter Green was a Cambridge educated Classicist who wrote novels on classical subjects. These two from the 1950s have just come my way with their brilliant jacket illustrations by Michael Ayrton,...
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Gaveston on Dartmoor: A Tale of Crazywell Pool
This is Crazywell Pool on Dartmoor. It was once thought by locals to be bottomless and the story goes that the bell ropes from a local church were hauled up here and lowered into the pool and no bottom...
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Gay History: George and Edward's Photos
The History Project in Boston is devoted to documenting and preserving the history of the LGBT community of Boston and these two charmers above are an example of how fragile such a history can be....
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Early 20th Century Wood Engraving
The first half of the twentieth century saw a blossoming in the art of wood engraving. Of course, there have been some stunning works done since then but changing tastes in book illustration, and in...
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Dugald Stewart Walker Illustrates Andersen's Fairy Tales
These are some of the illustrations for Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales by Dugald Stewart Walker. I'm sure for some of you reading this blog that must be a very familiar name but I confess, until today, I...
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A Brilliant Book!
Kudos to R today for finding this wonder and knowing that he should bring it home. Initially it looks interesting enough: a public school story in full early twentieth century chummy gear. And of...
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1950s Mountain Panoramas
I am enjoying these 1950s postcards with panoramic aerial views of the Alps. I've always admired the skill involved in being able to draw an 'aerial' image like this without, probably, having seen it...
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The Story of the Emperor and Antony
The venerable old chap on the right is Major R. Raven-Hart, an astonishing character who, after a military career which spanned two world wars and garnered him an OBE and various foreign decorations,...
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Esmond Hunt's Window by Frank Brangwyn in Manaton Parish Church
At the edge of Dartmoor is a small hamlet with a name that makes it sound like an angel from an obscure and apocryphal book of the Bible: Manaton. In fact it does have a rather pleasant church, most...
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Jacynth Parsons Illustrates John Masefield
Every now and again you pick up an illustrated book and see something you haven't seen before. This seems to be happening to me with increasing frequency at the moment. Today it was this little number...
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Human Figure Drawing and Berenice Abbott's Photos
The secondhand booktrade is awash with books on 'how to draw', and in particular, 'how to draw people'. One of the things I intend to protest about should I ever reach the pearly gates along with why I...
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Major Raven-Hart's Commemorative
Those who enjoyed the Story of the Emperor and Antony by Major Raven-Hart a few days ago, and many of you did if my inbox is anything to go by, will be delighted to know that the incomparable Mark...
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John Kettelwell Illustrates Aladdin
John Kettelwell is not the most well-known of illustrators but I've had this copy of The Story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (Knopf, New York: 1928) for many years and have meant to share it here...
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John Gambril Nicholson. A Face Emerges
John Gambril Nicholson was a Uranian poet, a schoolmaster and a photographer. But, intriguing though his life and work is, not even his greatest fans would argue that he was a major literary figure....
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A Finger in the Fishes Mouth by Derek Jarman
2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of film-maker, diarist, activist, painter, gardener, saint and poet, Derek Jarman: one of the greatest Queer figures of the Twentieth Century. A number of events...
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Things That Fall From Books #18: Copies of the Illustrations
The mantra of all kind of collecting is "condition, condition, condition..." Well, I've never been quite so sure and I think, actually, there are a lot of collectors out there of all kinds of things...
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