In 1926, as the appetite for Rackham’s lavish books was declining in post-war Britain but increasing in America, he set his sights on one of the most timeless masterpieces of literature for grownups: Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, composed more than two centuries earlier. His drawings - especially his unmistakable trees - emanate a reverence for the totality of life, the inseparability of beauty and brutality, of terror and transcendence. His obituary in The Times of London would mourn him as a preeminent artist who had earned “a special place in the hearts of children” - perhaps because he refused to treat children as emotionally infirm and understood the importance of being scared.
So began a career that would go on to influence generations of illustrators and book artists for more than a century to come. In 1907 - his fiftieth year, and four years after he married Edith - Rackham revolutionized book art and the business of publishing with his Alice in Wonderland illustrations by using his signature robust pen, India ink, and watercolor technique to render engravers unnecessary in the bookmaking process and to produce dreamy images that brought the Carroll classic to life in a thrilling new way. More exhibitions followed, which led to commissions that allowed this quiet, introverted, serious-faced man to unleash his uncommon imagination upon the landscape of literature. Instead, they were lauded as visionary and innovative. (She also married him.) She convinced him to exhibit his fantasy watercolors at the Royal Watercolor Society, where Rackham feared his they would be mocking-stock against the stern traditional work.
In 1898, over a garden wall, Arthur Rackham (September 19, 1867–September 6, 1939) met the Irish portrait artist and sculptor Edyth Starkie, who encouraged the onetime insurance clerk turned insecure artist to pursue his creative passion.
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