George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank was born into a family of artists. His father Isaac was a caricaturist, an etcher, and an engraver with his own printing company where he made designs, George and his older brother Robert added details, mother Mary, and sister Eliza colored printed products.

This is how Cruikshank portrayed scenes from Hop-o-my-Thumb (above) and Cinderella (below). He liked to add some text to illustrations.

George Cruikshank never got past elementary school. It was simply too much to do in his father's company. On the other hand, he had an opportunity to be involved in the complete creative process of his father, who was skilled and pretty successful (brother Robert too), and be in contact with some of the most established artists and editors of the time because many of them came to Isaac's firm.

George successfully implied all learned tricks of the trade to his talent and developed an extreme sense for spotting the details. He practiced drawing scenes from the neighborhood, especially different social situations, and was able to sell his first drawings when he was only ten years old.

George Cruikshank married Mary Ann Walker (1807–1849) when he was already 35 years old (she was only 20 and such an age difference was pretty normal at the time. Two years after her death he remarried. Eliza Widdison (1807-1890) became his second wife and later a widow. Both marriages were childless.

George Cruikshank still managed to become a father. House servant Adelaide Attree (1830-?) became pregnant in 1850. In Victorian England something like that was not appropriate for a single woman, so she had to leave but was set in the neighborhood only a few houses away. George was the father, he improvised a working studio in her house and provided as much as he can to maintain two households. Adelaide gave birth to eleven of his children with the last being born only about two years before George's death.

Above we can see a title page from Cruikshank's Pentamerone.

George Cruikshank became a successful caricaturist at an early age. He learned from then-leading satirical caricaturist James Gillray and soon surpassed his skills. One of the details in Gillray's work was speech balloons very similar to today's speech balloons in comic strips. Such 'invention' was already used in Middle Ages but later fell out of fashion due to the rise of Realism.

King George IV and his wife Queen Caroline both indulged in extramarital affairs whet was an easy target, a so-called sitting duck for Cruikshank's caricatures. His drawings of scenes from the life of the royal couple were so popular the king offered him one hundred pounds (a lot of money for those times) if he stopped portraying the sovereign in immoral situations.

Being paid for work is good, being paid a lot for good work is great, and being paid for not working is the best.

Cruikshank and Dickens were good friends at the beginning. Cruikshank illustrated several works by one of the greatest writers ever, including the first edition of Oliver Twist. Cruikshank, who was also a talented actor, played a few parts in Dickens' amateur theater.

When Dickens established his own magazine, their professional collaboration stopped and their friendship went south when Cruikshank started promoting prohibition. After Dickens' death, Cruikshank claimed most of the authorship of Oliver Twist's plot, which still rise some controversion.

George Cruikshank designed tens of thousands of drawings and illustrated about 850 (!) books. To be honest many of his works were republished under different titles, but his extreme productivity despite his active membership in Temperance League is still almost unbelievable.

Yet Cruikshank, who also established his magazine, had a lot of expenses, and together with bad business decisions and a waning ability to draw due to developed palsy (loss of control of the muscle movements) for most of his life fought financial troubles.

The Wonderful Story of Bluebeard and his wife was done in Cruikshank's characteristic humorous style. Due his speed of work he really didn't bother with complex symbolism of Bluebeard.

Below it's his take on Puss in Boots, resembling the approach from comic strips.

While we must conclude that Cruikshank definitely became the most influential illustrator of the 19th century (his drawings were never just presentations of the scenes from the stories and often offered completely new dimensions and interpretations), his works, once praised as top art of the time today look racist and sexist.

Graphic credits:

https://manyinterestingfacts.wordpress.com/2023/04/16/george-cruikshank-in-6-points/