Heath Robinson: Artist and Comic Genius (review)

William Heath Robinson (1872-1944) is best known today, as he was during his life time, for his drawings of strange and unlikely inventions, usually involving absurd balances and lots of knotted string. He was also an important illustrator of the Rackham-Dulac-Nielsen school, a significant cartoonist for the London Sketch (a sister magazine of The Illustrated London News), and an author of charming and whimsical books for children. John Lewis' wide-ranging study touches on all aspects of Heath Robinson's career.

Lewis had the co-operation of Robinson's family and, understandably his chapter on Robinson's life has little in it that would offend his survivors. There is only a slight hint that his relations with his children were more comfortable in their youth than in their adulthood. Lewis is freer to comment on artists who influenced Robinson, most strongly (and, for me, surprisingly) Aubrey Beardsley. It is easier to see the influence of Sidney H. Sime, whom Lewis apparently thinks has been forgotten, a surprising conclusion for those who admire Sime's illustrations for Dunsany's early fantasies, which Lewis doesn't mention. As fine as is Heath Robinson's work for the elaborately illustrated volumes of the 1900 to 1920 period, he seems to me more sentimental, less original, and more dated than Rackham, Dulac, and, especially, Nielsen. Lewis would not agree and reproduces many illustrations to prove his points. He comments intelligently on Robinson's illustrations for the books he wrote for children, The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902) and Bill the Minder (1912).

Lewis' study is well produced and handsomely bound in green cloth with a delightful caricature stamped in gold on the front cover. It includes approximately a hundred Heath Robinson reproductions. Those that were originally in black and white seem well reproduced; Robinson excelled in color, and it is unfortunate that Lewis reproduced most as muddy half tones. The four illustrations reproduced in color include only one example of the artist's best work ("The Respectable Gentleman" from Bill the Minder). Better examples are included in Leo De Freitas' recent paperback collection of Heath Robinson's illustrations for Peacock/ Bantam.