Joseph Clayton Clark - Late 19thC Watercolour Trio Of Dickensian Characters

Description

A charming set of characterful illustrations showing three men from some of Charles Dickens's more notable novels: Tony Weller from Pickwick Papers, Sydney Carton from Tale Of Two Cities and Mr Bumble from Oliver Twist. The artist encapsulates the exaggerated characters in all their cliche using an impressive economy of line.

Joseph Clayton Clark (1857-1937) worked under the pseudonym "Kyd" as seen signed on each of these illustrations. Each image has been inscribed with the character's name and the novel they are from.

Condition

All three images have heavy mount burn and discolouration. There is a line of stains across the top third of two and the lower third of the other. There is foxing over one image, creasing to the corners and significant tears to the edges of another.

Size

18.3 x 12.6cm (7.2" x 5")
Sheet: 28.8 x 20.1cm (11.3" x 7.9")

Artist Biography

Joseph Clayton Clark (1856/57 — 8 August 1937), who worked under the pseudonym "Kyd", was a British artist best known for his illustrations of characters from the novels of Charles Dickens. The artwork was published in magazines or sold as watercolor paintings, rather than included in an edition of the novels.

Clark had many occupations during his lifetime, including designer of cigarette cards and postcards, and as a fore-edge painter principally specializing in characters from the works of Charles Dickens. He worked for Punch for only one day and then as a freelance artist until 1900.

Clark's illustrations from Dickens first appeared in 1887 in Fleet Street Magazine, with two published collections appearing shortly after as The Characters of Charles Dickens (1889) and Some Well Known Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens (1892). Early in the twentieth century five sets of postcards based on his Dickens drawings were published, as well as seven sets of non-Dickensian comic cards.
From 1927 Clark earned his living from watercolor sketches, mainly of Dickens' characters, which he sold to and through the London book trade. Frederic G. Kitton referred to Clark in his book Dickens and His Illustrators (1890), by which time Clark's watercolors were already being bought by major Dickens collectors.

Apart from his Dickens work, "Kyd" also illustrated humorous series such as "Some Typical Newspaper Readers" (c.1900), "The Book and Its Reader", and "London Types". He also illustrated a series of 50 smokers for Gallaher Ltd.; this series was issued as a set of cigarette cards entitled 'Votaries of the Weed' in 1916.

In 1910 the British Museum acquired a collection of 598 drawings and paintings of Clark's Dickens illustrations, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, Charles Dickens Museum and the University of Texas at Austin each also have significant collections of Clark's Dickens illustrations.