ROBINSON, Charles

“One could see that not long since [CHARLES ROBINSON] had been more nervous than he is today. Contact with the world was making him less like a startled fawn”

Charles Robinson was the second child of four brothers and two sisters and he was born on the 22^ndOctober 1870. His father, an illustrator, often worked from home meaning Charles was raised around the techniques of both artists and craftsmen working especially with wood engravings. His route into illustrations was not an easy one, as he had to work by day as a lithographic artist in his apprenticeship at Waterlow and Sons while attending art school in the evening. In 1892, he was awarded a full time place at the Royal Academy but money troubles prevented him from taking it and again he had to stick to evening classes. 

The first full book he illustrated was Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses(1895) whose popularity generated numerous commissions for Charles. He illustrated many kinds of fairy tales including Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1910), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland(1907) and books written by Walter Copeland Jerrold and himself. In 1932, he was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.