Arthur Rackham Art and Illustrations

Yes, there are Arthur Rackham images on this page! I probably have more Arthur Rackham art online than anywhere else on the net ("puffs up chest proudly"). However, this page came to load so slowly that many people experience incomplete page load. To remedy that, I've created links to subpages. All the images are still there and I have more yet to scan and post. Reading is good for you. ~XineAnn

About Arthur Rackham

Arthur Rackham's (1867-1939) haunting and dreamlike style has added to the enchantment and fantasy of the children's literature and his imitators are many.

Arthur Rackham began his career as a prolific English illustrator at the end of the 19th century. He was one of 12 children. At 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying at the Lambeth School of Art, where he studied for seven years. In 1892 he quit his clerk job and started working for The Westminster Budget as a reporter and illustrator. His first book illustration was published in 1893.

Arthur Rackham married Edyth Starkie in 1903. They had one child, a daughter, Barbara, in 1908. Rackham drew and painted many images of Barbara.

Rackham was made a full member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour in 1908. He also won a gold medal at the Milan International Exhibition in 1906 and another one at the Barcelona International Exposition in 1911. His works appeared in numerous exhibitions, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914.

He studied drawing at evening classes at Lambeth School of Art (1884) for 7 years, at the same time that he was working full-time in insurance. He bagan as an illustrator of children's books, using the then new half-tone process. He first became known for his illustration to Grimm's Fairy Tales. In 1905, He made his American debut with his illustrations to Rip van Winkle and in 1906, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens was published. His final book was The Wind In the Willows was published in 1940, a year after his death at home in Limpsfield, Surrey in 1939.

Rackham Art Images at Art Passions

These collections include illustrations of Arthur Rackham, from Wagner's The Ring of Nibelung, Midsummer Night's Dream, Twilight of the Gods, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Alice in Wonderland, Mother Goose, Undine, Wind and the Willows, Gulliver's Travels, King of the Golden River and others.

Recent Additions and Changes

Girl Beside a Stream

I have added many new Rackham images. Some people had trouble downloading this page because of its length, so I have moved the Alice, Gulliver, Peter Pan, and Ring sections to their own pages. So if images that were here from your last visit no longer appear on this page, they have probably been moved to their own page. There will be a link in the appropriate section. Please stay calm. :)

About Art Passions

Art Passions began a tribute to artists whose work I grew up, and whose work has meaning for me personally. The list of artists on artpassions.net, including recent additions to the site, as well as other information are available on the home page.

Arthur Rackham Illustrations

Images from Arthur Rackham's Illustrations to The Wonder Book

Images from Arthur Rackham's illustrations to The Wonder Book No trouble

Pandora

Scaly Rascals

Mermaids with Sea Green Hair

Dragon with Three Heads

Images from Arthur Rackham's illustrations to Alice in Wonderland

These links open to separate pages.

Rackham - Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland - online book with Rackham images

Images from Arthur Rackham's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Separate page will all illustrations to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, some history and some interesting fairy marginalia.

Rackham - Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Images from Arthur Rackham's illustrations to Gulliver's Travels

Separate page. Online book also.

Rackham - Gulliver's Travels<

Images from Arthur Rackham's illustrations to Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle

Yes, all of them.

Rackham - Rip Van Winkle

Images from Arthur Rackham's illustrations to Wagner's The Ring of Nibelung

Yes, all of them.

Rackham - The Ring

Images from Arthur Rackham's illustrations to John Ruskin's King of the Golden River

King of the Golden River

The Old Gentleman Reclined on a Globe

Gave the Child a Bottle

So there they lay, all three

Images from Arthur Rackham's llustrations to Mother Goose (the Old Nursery Rhymes)

Title Page

The Fair Maid who the first of Spring

Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill

Jack Sprat and His Wife

Rain, Rain, Go Away

The Old Woman Who Lived Under a Hill

As I was Going to St. Ives... (contains self-portrait)

Man in the Wilderness

A Little Nothing Woman

Bye Baby Bunting

Hark! Hark! The Dogs do Bark!

The Cow Jumped Over the Moon

Little Miss Muffet

A Ring of Roses

Images from Arthur Rackham's illustrations to Tales from Shakespeare, and others

Cordelia

Ganeymede

Fair Helena

Titania & Peasebottom

Rhinegold and the Valkyrie

Valkyrie

Undine

Illustrations from Irish Fairy Tales

My life became a ceaseless scurry and wound and escape

Wild and shy and monstrous creatures ranged in her plains and forests

He might think, as he stared on a staring horse, "a boy cannot wag his tail to keep the flies off"

How he strained and panted to catch on that pursuing person

Then they went hand in hand in the country that smells of appleblossoms and honey

Sitting on a branch, she looked with angry woe at the straining and snarling horde below

The banquet hall was in a tumult

The thumping of his big boots grew as continuous as the pattering of hailstones on a roof

"This one is fat," said Cuillen, and she rolled a bulky Fenian along like a wheel

He was surrounded by giant toads

They offered a cow for each leg of her cow, but she would not accept that offer

The Hag of the Mill was a bony, thin pole of a hag with odd feet

Illustrations from Comus, Cinderella, English Fairy Tales, Sleeping Beauty, and elsewhere

Complete Illustration to Feats on the Fjords (1899).

It came nearer and nearer, and at last quite up to the can of ale"

In the porch she found Oddo

And that vessel, he knew, was the pirate schooner

He sometimes hammered at his skiff

No other than the Mountain-Demon

At the end of a ledge he found the remains of a ladder made of birch-poles

In desperation Hunt, unarmed as he was, threw himself upon the pirate

It was Hund, with his feet died under his horse, and the bridle held by a man on each side

Vintage Books and Prints

Vintage Rackham Posters are rare and costly when you do find them, although you can still find some that were printed by Paper Tiger Press in La Jolla, California, in the late '60s and early '70s. You can also find notecards with Rackham images at flea markets and have one blown up for under $25. However, alternatives, such as nicely framing a page from a Rackham-illustrated book, do work. You'll want to choose a reprint or a book in poor condition, because many Rackham books in good condition are valuable.

Rackham Art Prints at Artsy Craftsy

Not all of the images here are suitable for prints but some of the more popular ones are available at Artsy Craftsy. Your purchases there help keep Art Passions going, and help support my antique fairy tale book habit. My Rackham prints are larger-format and printed on cotton rag fine art paper, with archival inks. There are some Rackham prints that are not available elsewhere.

Free Rackham Fonts

The Scriptorium offers art fonts and traditional fonts based on Rackham's work. The title image of this page shows one of his fonts. They also offer Rackham images for desktop publishing. Not fine art quality, but I was very happy with my test purchase there.

You can download a free demo version of Scriptorium's Rackham Italic in Zip format or Stuffit for MacOS. Installation instructions are included. Or try a demo version of the Rackham Goblins font: Zip format or Stuffit for MacOS.

Arthur Rackham, Leviathan Important: Please do not link directly to images at artpassions or download the entire site. See the FAQ for why this is a problem. If you download the entire site with an offline webstripper, you will take down the site. This will make me very grumpy and I will ban your IP address, entire domain or country, depending on how bad it was.

Note If you have questions about the art on these pages, please see the FAQ. The most common questions are answered there, including "what is it worth?" questions and "who gives me permission?" questions. You can write me, but I may take awhile getting back to you.

Questions? Difficulties?

Sometimes things break. If something isn't working right, please tell the webmistress. Mention that the error is on the Artpassions Rackham page or I won't know. For questions, be sure to check the FAQ. But I cannot tell you what books or prints are worth and I would rather not receive offers from booksellers because if I don't already have it, I probably cannot afford what you want for it and it will just upset me.