AN AMERICAN ILLUSTRATOR

Evening Star, Issue 19272, 10 June 1926, Page 1

AN AMERICAN ILLUSTRATOR

MB JOSEPH PENHELL DEAD Mr Joseph Pennell, artist and author, and morn particularly illustrator, died at Ins lion,so in Brooklyn a foiv weeks ago. ' lie was so long a.nd so closely associated with London (says ‘The Times’),tii at many people to whom Ins name was familiar were unaware ol the fact that he was an American, very convinced American at that. From about 18S5 to the rears of the war Ids finl in the Adelpld, where he had as neighbors Sir James Barrio, Mr Bernard Shaw, and Mr Fisher Unwin, the publisher, was a centre of lavish production in art and literature and of intellectual and distinctly argumentative society. Pen-

nell was horn In Philadelphia’on the Fourth of July—a date which he wholeheartedly approved—lß6o. In 1884 he manned Miss Elizabeth Robins, who, as Elizabeth Robins Pennell, was to bn Ids collaborator in a long serie-s of publcalons. Except n the cases of ‘A Lltie Tour n France.’ by Henry James, and ‘ London,’ by Mr Sdney Dark, most of bis topographical illustrations were to the travel hooks charmingly written by his wife. His own writings on the technique of the various arts that ho practised are extremely valuable. They include ‘Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen,’ 1889; ‘Modern Illustration,’ 1895; ‘ Lithography and Lithographers,’ ]900; ‘Etchers' and Etching,’ 1019; and ‘The Graphic Arts,’ 1922. It was in 1884 that Pennell first met Whistler, though ho had known and admired his work in America, and the close acquaintance which followed led to Mr and Mrs Pennell undertaking a biography of the artist, which, after some litigation with his executrix on the right to use his letters, was published in 1907. That Whistler owed a great deal of Ids English reputation to Pennell cannot lie doubted, and it was an article by Pennell, written for tb« first issue of the ‘ Studio ’ ill April, 189.']. which made Aubrey eßardsley famous. Upon lithography in partieular Pennell was an acknowledged authority.