Arthur Rackham was born in London on 19 September 1867. He entered the City of London School in 1879. He began drawing at an early age and trained under Herbett Dicksee, the School Drawing Master. He was awarded a school prize for the best "Memory Drawing" during the summer and received another award for Drawing during the winter term in 1883.
In 1884, the Rackhams relocated to Australia to help improve Arthur's ailing health where they stayed from January through May and then returned home to England. Although Rackham only spent a short time in Australia, the land down under inspired the promising illustrator.
Rackham's watercolour, "Winchelsea from the Marsh", was his first work in public exhibition which took place at the Royal Academy in 1888. A couple of years later he left began regularly contributing illustrations to Pall Mall Budget, which was a general interest magazine for adults with a regular children's section. His drawings began to reveal a unique range of imagination as he employed the use of the new halftone process.
The first flowering of his fanciful style was The "Dolly Dialogues", published in 1894. It is speculated that his seemingly overnight transformation from a good journalist-artist to the prolific portrayer of fantastic dwarfs, giants, elves, fairies, and gnomes, of sea serpents and water nymphs, of humanized animals and trees, was partially due to his release from the constraining bonds of newspaper report- ing. Whatever the cause, this imaginative outpouring led to a highly lucrative career in book illustration.
Over the next few years, Rackham retired as Admiralty Marshall and illustrated works published by J.M. Dent such as Harriet martineau's Feats on the Fjord, Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, Gulliver's Travels, and Grimm's Fairy Tales by Freemantle Co.
In 1901, he became engaged to Edyth Starkie and was included in a loan exhibition of Modern Illustration at Victoria and Albert Museum and Edinburgh. He was elected Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society and began to exhibit at the RWA summer and winter exhibitions. By 1902 he was a member of the Langham Sketching Club.
Arthur Rackham and Edyth Starkie were married in 1903 and gave birth to a stillborn child in march 1904. Ernest Brown and Phillips gave Rackham commission for 51 illustrations to Rip Van Winkle and was exhibited at St Louis International and Dusseldorf International exhibitions. He won a Gold Medal at the Milan International Exhibition and participated in an exhibition at Leicester Galleries in December after Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens was published. In 1907, Arthur Rackham was profiled in The World in their feature "Celebrities at Home," and received a contract for Alice in Wonderland.
Barbara Rackham was born to Edyth and Arthur Rackham in January of 1908. In November of that year, The Daily Mirror published Rackham's views on dolls and his belief that illustrators and authors should work together. The following year Rackham was elected to the Artworkers' Guild and Gulliver, Grimm and Lamb's Tale were reissued.
In 1910, Rackham presented his view on the role of illustration to the Authors' Club in January while at the same time he received a contract for two volumes of The Ring with Heinemann. Rackham was elected Vice President of RWS that year and held that office for the next two years. He was once again published, by the Daily News, on his views concerning the decline of caricature.
Arthur Rackham was awarded a 1st Class Medal at the Barcelona International exhibition in 1911 for his illustrations from A "Midsummer Night's Dream", "Undine", "The Ring", and "The Imp of the Smoke", which was purchased by the Barcelona Museum. In 1912, he was elected into the position of Associate of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris. He sold some of his work to Edmund Davis for presentation to the Luxembourg Gallery in Paris as well as being included in exhibitions at the Louvre, Paris, and in Leipzig in 1914.
During the next few years, Rackham's contributions include "King Albert's Book", "Princess Mary's Gift Book", and "The Queen's Gift Book". In 1919, he was elected Master of the Art worker's Guild in which he would speak publicly on issues that have an impact on the profession. During this time he was commissioned to illustrate a series of soap advertisements for the Colgate Co. which turned out to be his largest commission in the United States.
Arthur Rackham died of cancer in his home on 6 September 1939. The most distinctive qualities of his illustrations was the way in which he told the story through his illustrations. His eye for detail and gift of imagination and creativity, which are characteristic of his illustrations, were an influence of the sixteenth century German artists Albrecht Durer and Albrecht Altdorfer. The illustrator left behind a legacy of over 60 illustrated books including the works of Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, James Barrie and Lewis Carroll. He is known and beloved internationally for his work in Classic fiction and Children's literature.
