Derek Hudson

“ The critics were largely of Barrie’s view in the matter, as, for example, the Pall Mall Gazette: ‘Not the least part of that good fortune that follows Mr Barrie’s steps is his choice of an illustrator. Mr Rackham seems to have dropped out of some cloud in Mr Barrie’s fairyland, sent by a special providence to make pictures in tune to his whimsical genius.’ Rackham’s friends and fellow illustrators were genuinely delighted at his success. ‘It may be that your pictures are a craze, that people have lost their heads and that the dealers are keeping the thing up – it may be!’ wrote Harry Rountree. ”

“ And it must be insisted on that nothing less than the best that can be had, cost what it may (and it can hardly be cheap) is good enough for those early impressionable years when standards are formed for life. Any accepting, or even choosing, art or literature of a lower standard, as good enough for children, is a disastrous and costly mistake.’
Many of Rackham’s correspondents were children, whose letters he always answered with the utmost courtesy and patience. ”

“ He was fond of all inventive games, and never minded being invaded in his studio, in fact people and conversation around him never disturbed him while he was working. Barbara would often watch him at work, sitting at his drawing desk, with a paint brush in his mouth while he used a pen, or vice versa, making the weird grimaces of his characters as he drew them – a fascinating performance for a child. ”

“ I think I like best of all the Serpentine with the fairies, and the Peter in his night-gown sitting in the tree. Next I would [sic] the flying Peters, the fairies going to the ball (as in the “tiff” & the fairy on cobweb) – the fairies sewing the leaves with their sense of fun (the gayest thing this) and your treatment of snow. I am always your debtor, and I wish the happiest Christmas, and please, I hope you will shed glory on more of my things. ”

“ Rackham’s model for Alice was Doris (Jane) Dommett, who told the story of her sittings to the Evening News (14th December 1939) after Rackham’s death. ‘He chose me from a number of little girls,’
‘Fairies never say, “We feel happy”: what they say is, “We feel dancey”’ Peter Pan
in Kensington Gardens (by courtesy of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd) . ”

“ Of course, you were prepared for everyone to say that no one could ever approach Tenniel etc. – they always do in such a case – but it seems to me that if comparisons – always “odorous” – must be drawn, they might be done decently. I should like too, to say how much I personally like your drawings. I would not have missed them in spite of all that Tenniel has had to say on the subject. ...”
Brock’s opinion coincided with the general verdict on Rackham’s Alice. He has certainly made the greatest impression of all Tenniel’s multitude of successors. ”

“ Rackham could have found no subject more immediately topical, or more fashionably propitious. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, as he re-created it, and as it appeared from Hodder and Stoughton with fifty full-page illustrations in colour mounted on thick paper according to the taste of the time (see pages 67, 69, 73, 75) , became the outstanding Christmas gift-book of 1906 – and maintained its hold for many later Christmases. ”

“ The illustrations for A Midsummer-Night’s Dream (see pages 81, 85, 89) , exhibited at the Leicester Galleries and published by Heinemann in 1908, and also in American, French and German editions, were much
The Blackwall tunnel: ‘our artist equipped for the tunnel’. A self-portrait of 1894.
‘A Mad Tea Party.’ Alice’s Adeventures in Wonderland, 1907.
less controversial in theme than Alice, and their success was ungrudged, though Rackham’s art was now receiving a measure of that severe scrutiny which comes to every artist who is popular with the general public. ”

“ Behind the house is the kind of garden that makes me feel six years old again. ...’ When he married, Rackham was earning considerably less than a thousand pounds annually, but he soon reached and passed that figure, and from 1907 onwards his eared income fluctuated for many years between £1,500 and £3,500. ”