RESERVED
The artist William Hatherell’s collection of letters and documents relating to his work as an illustrator in the 1890s-1920s. Among c70 items is Hatherell’s retained copy of a famous letter to him by Thomas Hardy praising his 1895 illustrations for Jude the Obscure, which the novelist wrote ‘to express my sincere admiration for the illustrations of “Jude at the Milestone”. The picture is a tragedy in itself & I do not remember ever before having an artist who grasped the situation so thoroughly… Thomas Hardy’ (see Hardy, Collected Letters Vol II). Much of Hatherell’s considerable success in Britain and north America flowed from Hardy’s high praise for his work and it is notable how much of this correspondence from editors in London and New York deals with Hatherell’s refusal to lower his standards.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Folio Album (38x29cm) bound in original green roan and pebbled cloth; structurally sound but lightly worn with cracking to the leather outer hinges at head and tail of spine. Bookseller’s ticket of ‘W Straker’ London to front pastedown. 54 leaves in total; 46 used, mostly rectos for a collection of letters and ephemera, c70 items in all.
NARRATIVE: The album begins with a letter from Dean Cornwell - ‘The Dean of Illustrators’ - President of the Society of Illustrators in the USA, announcing Hatherell’s election as a member and stating that ‘There is no living man whom we men in American feel a greater debt to, than yourself, for all you have done to raise Illustration to a high plane.’ Later America correspondents include Richard Harding Davis discussing a commission, Charles Dana Gibson (also on Society of Illustrators business) and Edward Russell (McClure’s Magazine) who expresses disappointment ‘because my suggestion for the picture was not taken into account at all’. In a later later letter Edward Russell writes on Players Club of NYC headed paper to apologise for a short deadline ‘but the call of the Editorial Department must be obeyed and sometimes they have me on the hip’ as well as making suggestions for Hatherell in a forthcoming story he is to illustrate.
Other correspondents include Queen Mary (printed letter and ticket to the Palace of Arts British Empire Exhibition which included Hatherell’s work), Florence A Kirkpatrick; E F Sharie from the Strand Magazine on his choice of media: ‘I do not want to hamper you in any way, but pencil drawings are extremely difficult to reproduce...’ Hugo Tyerman (The Children’s Newspaper); William Babington Maxwell (Hatherell illustrated his stories in The Strand), Robert Percy Hodder Williams (publisher) Agnes Ethel Conway (Women’s Work, Imperial War Museum, about Hatherell’s Edith Cavell painting) A E Johnson (artist’s agent on commissions) and three letters from Sydney Boot about illustrations for Sheila Kaye Smith. George Robey (3 letters) the music hall performer writes about an illustrated programme for a memorial concert - with the programme laid in and Rutherford Crockett re illustration of his story. Other publications represented by letters include The Graphic; The Associated Illustrators (Henry S Fleming, Broadway) and there is real emotion from some correspondents: ‘I wept over your picture in last years Academy’ from Florence T Nicholson. Alfred Scott-Gatty (composer) writes about the purchase of a picture. Hugh Stowell Scott - actually novelist Hugh Merriman - praises ‘a sense of the dramatic’ in Hatherell’s work. Also letters from George Clausen, founder member of the New England Art Club; Stanhope Forbes (Newlyn Artist); novelist Mary Cholmondely with costume changes recommended by a friend who has viewed pictures in the company of ‘The King and the Prince of Wales’. A letter from Clement Phillipson in Australia recalls meeting Hatherell in 1890 in the goldmines of Tetulpa when he was touring the country on a commission from Cassell to illustrate a book about the country.
William Hatherell (1855-1928) studied at the Royal Academy and despite working in oils and other media achieved his most notable success as an illustrator.
