Sep 29, 2016 - Sale 2423

Sale 2423 - Lot 39

Price Realized: $ 3,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
W. HEATH ROBINSON.
"A Song of the English." Design for the decorative boards and spine for the book by Rudyard Kipling, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1909. Watercolor, graphite, pen and ink on board. 292x216 mm; 11 1/2x8 1/2 inches. Faint foxing and soil spots.
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Additional Details

"The next important task I undertook, was the illustration of an edition of Rudyard Kipling's A Song of the English to be published by Hodder & Stoughton in the year 1908. It became necessary for me to meet the author and discuss the proposed book with him. For this purpose, I traveled down to Burwash where he lived at that time. This was an excursion I shall always remember. I was met at Heathfield and journeyed thence in a motor-car. There were few cars on the road in those days and this in itself was a joyful experience as we drove through the pleasant Sussex lanes. Bateman's, the house at Burwash, where Rudyard Kipling lived, was a fine old building with stone mullioned windows. It was in the midst of wind-blown Sussex country. There was a faint smell of the sea in the air wafted across the few miles of country from the shore where the Coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go. It was a fitting setting in which to find the author of A Song of the English. He met and entertained me with a quiet affability, which speedily removed the shyness I felt at first in his presence. Before long I was quite at home with him. His own knowledge of illustration gave him an appreciation of the artist's point of view. While making suggestions, he realized that the illustrator must have as free a hand as possible. His sympathetic understanding of my part in the undertaking made me feel that I was consulting with a brother artist. I spent a happy and for me a helpful day. It was a great inspiration for the work I had in hand to be in such close association with the author's interesting personality. I am always glad to remember that he was satisfied with my illustrations to his book." (W. Heath Robinson, My Line of Life. Pages 126-127).