In August 1889 the first issue of The Dial appeared containing original art work and literary texts by the Vale group led by Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts. Up to this date all of Ricketts’s drawings had been commissioned works for several art magazines such as The Magazine of Art and The Universal Review, the weekly comic The Alarum and the journal which Oscar Wilde had given a new life, The Woman’s World. Ricketts also published drawings in Cassell’s History of England and other books. These were cartoons, biblical scenes, historical scenes set in Assyria, Egypt, the Roman Empire or Elizabethan England. Contemporary fashion was illustrated with imaginative elements such as cupids at play.
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| Charles Ricketts, headpiece for The Latest Fashions (The Woman's World, July 1889) |
These early drawings may not have been free work, but they are never entirely without interest and his decorations – initial letters and head- and tailpieces – are in a fluent and symbolic mode, marking the beginning of his own style, as some commentators have mentioned. In all, there were 45 early drawings, which for the first time have been reproduced together in Charles Ricketts’s Early Drawings. Published from December 1885 to August 1889.
They give an insight into Ricketts’s early development as a draftsman and provide examples of initials and borders which he would later design for Vale Press books. These early illustrations catch the eye for their modernity, contrast and dramatic scenery, which differed strikingly from illustrations by other artists in the same publications. Fairly soon Ricketts stopped following the conventions of the time, but sought ways to incorporate the influence of D.G. Rossetti into illustrations which would gradually move towards art nouveau. The drawings attracted attention and brought Ricketts the support from publishers, editors, art editors and authors who gave him opportunities which eventually launched his career as designer of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Intentions, The Sphinx and others, whose covers and title-pages would change British book design.
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| Charles Ricketts’s Early Drawings, cover |
Paul van Capelleveen
Charles Ricketts’s Early Drawings. Published from December 1885 to August 1889
The Hague, At the Paulton, November 2024
60 pages, 46 illustrations, 24:17 cm
Designed by Huug Schipper (Studio Tint)
Set in Proforma Medium
Printed on Biotop 205 g. by Mostert & Van Onderen, Leiden
Edition limited to seventy-five numbered copies
Price: € 25,00
Including packaging and shipping:
Netherlands: £30,00.
European Union: €36,00.
United Kingdom: €36,00.
USA and Canada: €39,00.
How to order?
Please send an email to Paul van Capelleveen [see the address in the right-hand bar]. You will receive a Paypal invoice, or we can suggest other ways of payment.
