Every so often, I like to check back on artists that I’ve written about previously and see if the internet, in its seemingly endless capacity to expand and grow, has graced us with additional image resources for the artist’s work that I didn’t offer in my original post.
In the case of Golden Age illustrator Charles Robinson, who I wrote about in 2007, I’m delighted to say the answer is an emphatic yes.
You might say that illustration was in Charles Robinson’s blood, his father was an illustrator, as were his brothers Thomas Heath Robinson and William Heath Robinson. Elder brother William is the best known of the three, and Charles is sometimes in his shadow, Thomas definitely so.
It’s unfortunate that the work of all three brothers doesn’t receive the attention it deserves.
The good news is that those additional resources I mentioned include several complete books illustrated by Charles, and one with work by all three brothers, now available on the Internet Archive. These, unlike some illustrated books featured on the Archive, have quite good reproductions of the illustrations.
The books feature both color reproductions and a wealth of Robinson’s beautiful ink drawings, reproduced better and in more quantity than I’ve previously seen, and I have to say they have raised my appreciation of Robinson as a pen and ink artist.
Each of the books can be flipped through page by page, or accessed through a page of thumbnails. In addition to the full illustrations, there are numerous spot illustrations and page decorations.
[I found the Internet Archive entries courtesy of this post on The Art of Charles Robinson on “{ feuilleton }”, the blog of artist and designer John Coulthart, and I recommend browsing through his Illustrators Archive (Time-Sink Warning).]
