Derek Hudson

“ Diving into a pile of surviving ‘fan’ letters we find one from Rochester, New York, written in the late nineteen-twenties, which commences ‘My dear Sir Arthur’, and another containing the apology: ‘Everybody here in New York calls you “Sir Arthur”, and that explains why I began my letter that way.’ (A Melbourne correspondent had already asked: “How shall I begin? Not Mr Rackham surely! It doesn’t sound a bit like the artist spirit who creates those wonderful fairy people. ...’) A letter from Texas came from ‘a co-ed with red hair and artistic appreciations’. ”

“ To live here must vulgarise an artist ... I could easily run off & dump my bags & self on the first ship to Europe. ... Bang bang bang bash. That man will bust that drum if no one stops him.’
Later letters were more cheerful. Rackham at sixty was obviously unable to come to terms with New York, but he found much to enjoy there. ‘Everyone is excessively kind,’ he wrote; ‘Everyone was brought up on my work – if young enough – or brought up their families on it if old enough.’ He soon had the run of six New York clubs, and was inundated with invitations. ”

“ On his last day in America, before sailing in the Olympic at midnight to get home for Christmas, Rackham visited an exhibition of drawings in the Children’s Room of the New York Public Library, met the young artist, and spent the evening with him and Anne Carroll Moore, who later described the occasion in The Horn Book (Christmas, 1939) . ”

“ The artists are extraordinarily friendly, too. I cannot think any American artist coming to our country (except a Whistler or Sargent) could find himself so heartily greeted.’
Rackham’s meetings with many publishers and magazine editors in their ‘gorgeous offices’ proved satisfactory and productive, though he was disappointed to find that, as in England, ‘all the publishers are shy of costly books’. ”

“ As a matter of fact the better class books do not sell half the number that they did before the war, & there is not as much profit to be made out of each book as there was, so neither publishers nor illustrators are having much of a time. The only men of my craft who are flourishing, are portrait painters, & advertisement designers – branches that I only occasionally enter. ”

“ Many of the letters, particularly those from isolated parts of America, are moving evidence of the joy which his books brought, particularly to the young and to invalids who could not travel to art galleries. ”

“ Alyn Williams, President of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, and his American wife were Rackham’s companions on the voyage in the liner Republic in early November. ‘Mrs Williams, thank heaven, had never heard of me before,’ Rackham told his wife. In the ship’s gymnasium Rackham and Williams went through a series of exercises designed to make Rackham fatter and Williams thinner. ”