Hugh Thomson

{{for multi|the British travel writer|Hugh Thomson (writer)|the businessman and political figure in Upper Canada|Hugh Christopher Thomson|the United States Army major, and formerly warrant officer|Hugh Thompson Jr.}}

{{Infobox artist

| image = Hugh Thomson.jpg

| alt = Hugh Thomson at his desk

| caption = Thomson in 1912

| birth_date = {{birth date|1860|6|1|df=y}}

| birth_place = Kingsgate Street, Coleraine, County Londonderry, Ireland

| death_date = {{death date and age|1920|5|7|1860|6|1|df=y}}

| death_place = 8 Patten Road, Wandsworth Common, London, England

| movement = Cranford School

| known_for = Illustration

}}

Hugh Thomson {{post-nominals|list=RI}} (1 June 1860{{snd}}7 May 1920) was an Irish illustrator.{{cite book|last=Houfe|first=Simon|title=The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists, 1800–1914 |year=1981 |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club Ltd.|location=Suffolk|page=479 |isbn=0902028731|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofbrit00houf}} He is best known for his pen-and-ink illustrations of works by authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and J. M. Barrie. Thomson inaugurated the Cranford School of illustration with the publication of the 1891 Macmillan reissue of Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford.

Biography

Thomson was born on 1 June 1860, in Coleraine, to tea merchant John Thomson (1822–1894) and shopkeeper Catherine (née Andrews) (d. 1871).{{cite web|last=Fitzpatrick|first=Olivia|title=Thomson, Hugh (1860–1920)|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36503|work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=5 June 2013}} He was the eldest of their three surviving children. Although he had no formal artistic training, as a young boy he would often fill his schoolbooks with drawings of horses, dogs, and ships.{{cite journal|last=Hammond|first=Lansing V.|title=Hugh Thomson 1860–1920|journal=The Yale University Library Gazette|date=April 1951|volume=25|issue=4|pages=131–138|jstor=40858476}} He attended Coleraine Model School, but left at the age of fourteen to work as a clerk at E. Gribbon & Sons, Linen Manufacturers.Illustrated by Hugh Thomson, 1860–1920. Comp. Olivia Fitzpatrick and Debby Shorley. Belfast: University of Ulster at Belfast, 1989. Years later, his artistic talents were discovered, and in 1877 he was hired by printing and publishing company Marcus Ward & Co.

On 29 December 1884, Thomson married Jessie Naismith Miller in Belfast. Soon afterwards they moved back to London for Thomson's career. They had one son together, John, born in 1886.

In 1911, he and his family moved to Sidcup, hoping to improve their "ever delicate health". Thomson's correspondence reflects the fact that he missed being close to the National Gallery and the museums where he usually compiled research for his illustrations. During World War I, demand for Thomson's work decreased to a few propaganda pamphlets and some commissions from friends. By 1917, Thomson had fallen on financial hardship and he had to take a job with the Board of Trade, where he worked until 1919.

Thomson died of heart disease at his home in Wandsworth Common on 7 May 1920.

Career

At age 17, Thomson joined the art department at Marcus Ward & Co. There his mentor was John Vinycomb, head of the art department. Vinycomb and Thomson's cousin, Mrs. William H. Dodd, encouraged his artistic development during the first years of his career.

Thomson's artistic ambitions led him to London in 1883 where he became a leading contributor The English Illustrated Magazine.{{cite web|title=Culture Northern Ireland|url=http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?art_id=2002|access-date=21 December 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211011233/http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?art_id=2002|archive-date=11 December 2013}} He first worked for the magazine with Randolph Caldecott on the 1885–86 issue, and later collaborated with Herbert Railton on the 1887–88 issue. His style at the time is said to be in the "straight tradition of Caldecott".{{ cite book|last=Houfe|first=Simon |title=Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists, 1800-1914 |pages=161 |date=1978 |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club |location=Woodbridge |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofbrit00houf/page/161/mode/1up |access-date=2020-06-13|isbn=0902028731 |url-access=registration }}

Thomson also gained praise and influenced many young artists through his book illustrations. He notably illustrated editions of William Shakespeare,See The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare with Illustrations by Hugh Thomson, (London: William Heinemann, 1910). Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens.{{cite web|title=Mount Holyoke Hugh Thompson Collection|url=https://www.mtholyoke.edu/archives/collections/hughthomson|access-date=21 December 2012}} His illustrations for Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford (1891) inspired a slew of publishers to produce a series of gift books in a similar style ("crown octavo with three edges gilt, bound in dark green cloth, front and spine heavily stamped in gold").{{cite book|last=Ray|first=Gordon N.|title=The illustrator and the book in England from 1790 to 1914|year=1991|publisher=Pierpont Morgan Library in association with Dover|location=New York|isbn=9780486269559|pages=181–182|url=http://umaryland.worldcat.org/oclc/2455685|edition=[Facsim. ed.].}} Between 1886 and 1900, he illustrated a set of small classics for Macmillans and Kegan Paul. Much of his work during that period consisted of elaborately illustrated gift books and reprints of popular classics. Thomson's most popular illustrations were "fine line drawing of rural characters and gentle countrified society".

His works were featured in a number of exhibitions during his lifetime, including an 1899 exhibit at the Birmingham and Midland Institute and a 1910 exhibit of his watercolour drawings for Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor at The Leicester Galleries in London.A handsome oversized volume with his paintings laid in was produced for the exhibition. See The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare with Illustrations by Hugh Thomson (London: William Heinemann, 1910). His illustrations were also featured in an 1891 exhibit with fellow illustrator Kate Greenaway at the Fine Art Society.{{refn|group=note|Thomson exhibited as follows: 194 works at the Fine Art Society, 181 works at the Leicester Galleries, five works at the London Salon, and 32 works at Walker's Gallery, London.{{r|Johnson-Greutzner-1986-500}}}}

=Methods=

File:Thomson-PP14.jpg]]

Thomson is best known for his pen-and-ink illustrations. He prepared most of his work in black and white until the early years of the 20th century, but would sometimes tint pieces for exhibits. The earliest known example of this was for the 1899 Birmingham and Midland Institute exhibition, where he colored the Cranford illustrations he had first drawn eight years earlier. Throughout his career Thomson occasionally dabbled with watercolours, but only used colour in his illustrations in response to his publishers' demand. His first book illustrations prepared and printed fully in colour were for the last two books in the Cranford series, Scenes of Clerical Life (1906) and Silas Marner (1907).

When working on a new illustration, Thomson would research his subject in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He would often take detailed notes on costumes, furniture, old prints and architectural records. His attention to detail can be seen in his sketchbooks, which include pages devoted to the changing styles of ladies' bonnets and descriptions of "the details of a cavalry officer's regimentals, together with a series of studies of how such an officer would hold the reins of his mount." When illustrating a series of pieces set in the same location, Thomson would maintain the details of each room, hallway or facade, drawing them from different angles throughout the publication.

Thomson was often praised for his ability to "project himself into a story". Much of his work has become inseparable from the publications themselves. Such is the case with his illustrations for Pride and Prejudice and the other Austen novels. When J. M. Barrie's Quality Street was published with Thomson's illustrations in 1913, the art critic for The Daily News stated, "The Barrie–Thomson combination is as perfect in its way as that of Gilbert and Sullivan".

Thomson was elected RI, a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, in 1897 and retired in 1907.

The Cranford School

Thomson was the first of the Cranford School of illustrators who abandoned the 1890s style of Beardsley for the delicacy of an eighteenth-century mode.{{ cite book |last1=Engen |first1=Rodney K. |title=Randolph Caldecott: Lord of the Nursery |publisher=Oresko Books Ltd. |location=London }} The 'Cranford School' of illustration was not so much a 'school' with a common training, but more of a style which celebrated a sentimental, pre-industrial notion of ‘old England'.{{ cite web |last1=Cooke |first1=Simon |title=Christiana Mary Demain 'Chris' Hammond (1860–1900), an illustrator of the '90s |website=The Victorian Web: literature, history, & culture in the age of Victoria |date=2016-04-09 |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/hammond/cooke.html |access-date=2020-06-17 }} The style was named for Thomson's illustrations of the Macmillan reissue of Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford. Cranford was the first of a series of 24 volumes, of which Thomson illustrated 11.{{ cite book |last1=Loosey |first1=Devoney |title=The Making of Jane Austen: With a new Afterword. |chapter=The Golden Age for Illustrated Austen: From Peacocks to Photoplays |date=2017 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore }} Felmingham includes the Cranford School within a broader movement that he called the Wig and Powder School which he states reflected an aspect of contemporary taste that . . . is sometimes called the 'Queen Ann revival'. Felmingham included the popularity of such architectural features as high-pitched roof, Flemish gables, and white or green painted sash windows as an outward expression of the revival.{{ cite book |last1=Felmingham |first1=Michael |title=The Illustrated Gift Book, 1880-1930: with a checklist of 2500 titles |chapter=Wig and Power School |pages=40 |date=1988-05-12 |publisher=Scholar Press |isbn=978-0859676922 }} Jenkins states that the term Wig and Powder School is loosely equivalent to the Cranford School and that the latter term was mostly used between 1890 and 1914.Jenkins also notes that the school is sometime also called that Queen Anne Revival, a term especially associated with the watercolour work that sometimes accompanied the delicate pen drawings, such as Thomson's colour drawings for the [http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003C64E 1898 Cranford, online] at the British Library.{{ cite book |editor1-last=Greenspan |editor1-first=Ezra |editor2-last=Rose |editor2-first=Jonathan |title=Book History |chapter=Trilby: Fads, Photographers, and "Over-Perfect Feed" |date=1998 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |location=University Park }}

The style was a nostalgic, affectionate and slightly whimsical approach to historical themes.{{ cite book |last1=Peppin |first1=Bridget |last2=Micklethwait |first2=Lucy |title=Book Illustrators of the Twentieth Century |chapter=Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) |pages=300 |date=1984 |publisher=Arco Publishing Inc. |location=New York }} and was distinguished by graphic nostalgia for a philistinism that was no more.{{cite book|editor1=Richard Maxwell|author1=Herbert F. Tucker|title=The Victorian Illustrated Book |chapter=Literal Illustration in Victorian Print |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mo86nKqQAQYC&pg=PA204 |access-date=16 June 2020|year=2002|publisher=University of Virginia Press|isbn=978-0-8139-2097-9|page=204}} The members of the school had all been fired by the literature, art, costume or atmosphere of England in the eighteenth century and became dealers in nostalgia on a very large scale.{{ cite book |last=Houfe|first=Simon |title=Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists, 1800-1914 |chapter=The Return of the Eighteenth Century |pages=184 |date=1978 |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club |location=Woodbridge |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofbrit00houf/page/184/mode/1up |isbn=0902028731|chapter-url-access=registration}} It was a style of illustration harking back to pre-industrial rural England,{{ cite book |editor1-last=Zaidan |editor1-first=Laura M. |editor2-last=Hunt |editor2-first=Caroline C. |title=Dictionary of Literary Biography |chapter=Minor Illustrators |volume=141: British Children's Writers, 1800-1914 |pages=316 |date=1994 |publisher=Gale Research |location=Detroit }} which specialized in the nostalgic recreation of a by-gone golden era before the ravages of industrialization.{{ cite book |last1=Blewett |first1=David |title=The Illustration of Robinson Crusoe: 1719-1920 |pages=151–2 |date=1995 |publisher=Colin Smythe |location=Gerrards Cross |isbn=0901072672 }} Cooke notes that the style involved the careful representation of Regency dress and interiors, pastoral settings and sharp characterization which was based on a close reading of the text. The emergence of the Cranford School style was only possible because photo-mechanical reproduction of drawings allowed the fine pen lines distinctive of the school to be reproduced, which was impossible with the older technique of wood engravings.

Thomson was the originator of the school. Other members of the school were:

C. E. Brock {{post-nominals|list=RI}} (1870–1938)
H. M. Brock {{post-nominals|list=RI}} (1875–1960){{ cite book |last1=Blewett |first1=David |title=The Illustration of Robinson Crusoe: 1719-1920 |pages=151 |date=1995 |publisher=Colin Smythe |location=Gerrards Cross |isbn=0901072672 }}
Chris Hammond (1860–1900), who signed her work Chris Hammond.
Fred Pegram {{post-nominals|list=RI}} (1870–1937)
F. H. Townsend (1868–1920){{ cite web |last1=Cooke |first1=Simon |title=Christiana Mary Demain 'Chris' Hammond (1860–1900), an illustrator of the '90s |website=The Victorian Web: literature, history, & culture in the age of Victoria |date=2016-04-09 |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/hammond/cooke.html |access-date=2020-06-17 }}

=Thomson's illustration of ''Cranford''=

The following illustrations by Thomson for the 1891 Macmillan Cranford give some flavour of the book that inaugurated the Cranford School. The book has 111 illustrations in total.

File:Illustration by Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) of the 1891 reissue of Cranford by Gaskell - frontispiece.jpg|Frontispiece

File:Illustration by Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) of the 1891 reissue of Cranford by Gaskell - 12.jpg|Page 12

File:Illustration by Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) of the 1891 reissue of Cranford by Gaskell - 64.jpg|Page 64

File:Illustration by Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) of the 1891 reissue of Cranford by Gaskell - 108.jpg|Page 108

File:Illustration by Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) of the 1891 reissue of Cranford by Gaskell - 118.jpg|Page 118

File:Illustration by Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) of the 1891 reissue of Cranford by Gaskell - 298.jpg|Page 298

Selected works

File:Houghton Typ 805.94.8320 - Pride and Prejudice, 1894, Hugh Thomson - superior dancing.jpg

In total, Thomson illustrated sixty-five books and contributed a large number of illustrations to magazines and other periodicals. The following list of publications includes a number of his works. External links lead to digitized copies on Internet Archive unless otherwise noted.

Illustrations in The English Illustrated Magazine (first appeared in the 1885–86 issue)
Days with Sir Roger De Coverley (1886) [https://archive.org/details/sirrogerdecoverl00addi digital copy]
Coaching Days and Coaching Ways (1888) [https://archive.org/details/coachingdaysand00tris digital copy]
Cranford (1891) [https://archive.org/details/cranford00gaskrich digital copy]
The Vicar of Wakefield (1891) [https://archive.org/details/cu31924013184043 digital copy]
The Ballad of Beau Brocade (1892) [https://archive.org/stream/balladofbeaubroc00dobsuoft#page/n5/mode/2up digital copy]
Our Village (1893) [https://archive.org/details/ourvillage00mitfrich digital copy]
Pride and Prejudice (1894) [https://archive.org/details/prideprejudice00aust digital copy]
The Story of Rosina and other Verses (1895) [https://archive.org/details/storyrosinaando00thomgoog digital copy]
Emma (1896) [https://archive.org/details/emmaausten00austrich digital copy]
Sense and Sensibility (1896) [https://archive.org/details/sensesensibility00austrich digital copy]
Mansfield Park (1897) [https://archive.org/details/mansfieldpark01austgoog digital copy]
Northanger Abbey (1898) [https://archive.org/details/northangerabbeya00austuoft digital copy]
Persuasion (1898) [https://archive.org/details/northangerabbeya00austuoft digital copy]
The Illustrated Fairy Books (1898)
Illustrations for twelve volumes in the Highways and Byways series, including Donegal and Antrim (1899) [https://archive.org/details/highwaysandbywa00gwyngoog digital copy]
Peg Woffington (1899) [https://archive.org/details/pegwoffingto00read digital copy]
A Kentucky Cardinal (1901) [https://archive.org/details/cardinalaftermat00allerich digital copy]
The History of Henry Esmond (1905) [https://archive.org/details/historythacofhenryes00rich digital copy]
Illustrations for eleven of the twenty-four volumes in the Cranford series (gift books), including Evelina (1903) [https://archive.org/details/evelinaburney00burn digital copy], Scenes of Clerical Life (1906) [https://archive.org/details/scenesclericall00thomgoog digital copy], and Silas Marner (1907) [https://archive.org/details/eliotsilasmarner00eliorich digital copy]
As You Like It (1909) [https://archive.org/details/asyoulikeit1909shak digital copy], [https://archive.org/details/asyoulikeit0000shak_o6y6 digital copy]
The Merry Wives of Windsor [https://archive.org/details/merrywivesofwind0000shak/page/n5/mode/2up digital copy]
Quality Street (1913) [https://archive.org/details/qualitystreetcom00barr digital copy]
Tom Brown's Schooldays (1918) [https://archive.org/details/tombrownsschwest00hugh digital copy]
An Irish Horse Fair

Gallery

File:Thomson-PP05.jpg|Pride and Prejudice, page 15: "She is tolerable."

File:Thomson-PP03 (recadrage).jpg|Pride and Prejudice, page 5: Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

File:Thomson-ch8-Mrs Musgrove.JPG|Persuasion, chapter 8: "Captain Wentworth attended to her large fat sighings."

File:Rosalind and Celia by Hugh Thomson 1909.jpg|As You Like It, illustration of Rosalind and Celia.

File:Scenes Frontispiece.JPG|Frontispiece from Scenes of Clerical Life.

File:Sense and Sensibility Illustration Chap 12.jpg|Sense and Sensibility, chapter 12: "He cut off a long lock of her hair."

File:Thomson-MP-ch48.JPG|Mansfield Park, chapter 48: "Sitting under trees with Fanny."

Notes

References

{{Reflist|refs=

{{cite book

|last1=Johnson

|first1=J.

|last2=Greutzner

|first2=A.

|title=The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940

|pages=500

|date=1905-06-08

|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club

|location=Woodbridge }}

}}

External links

{{Gutenberg author | id=24921| name=Hugh Thomson}}
{{FadedPage|id=Thomson, Hugh|name=Hugh Thomson|author=yes}}
{{Internet Archive author |sname=Hugh Thomson}}
The 1891 Cranford, online at the Internet Archive. This is the book that inaugurated the Cranford School.
[http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003C64E The 1898 Cranford, online] at the British Library. This edition replacing some of the original 1891 pen and ink illustrations by Thomson with coloured illustrations by him.
[https://www.mtholyoke.edu/archives/collections/hughthomson Hugh Thomson collection] at Mount Holyoke Special Collections
[http://www.niarchive.org/coleraine/Exhibitions_Collections.aspx?lc=1&id=b1fe0d11-3aa6-4802-884c-6c0622f0ec6b Hugh Thomson collection] at Coleraine Museum Archive
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54RNTE4JSx8&list=FLrQq_2qPvtDi-pFtf2M9frA Hugh Thomson Illustration Collection: Online Exhibition] on YouTube.
[https://www.flickr.com/search/?tags=artist:name=%22Hugh%20Thomson%22 Works by Hugh Thomson in Flickr Commons]