George Charles Hait6

George Charles Hat6 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page]1 of 4
George Charles Hait6
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Charles Haiti (8 June 1855 - 31 March
1924) was an English designer, painter, illustrator and
writer. His most famous work is the iconic cover
design of the Strand Magazine launched in 1891
Gog
which helped popularise the Sherlock Holmes stories
~
hre
at
GereCalsHIt
of Arthur Conan Doyle. Bait was also a founder
Club.It
"'
Contents
ILife and ArtN
*
*
*
*
*2Illustrationwork and The Strand magazine
*3The Sette of Odd Volumes and Oscar
Wilde
4 The London Sketch Club
5 Death and legacy
6 External linksBitnae
7 Notes and referencesBitnae
Life and Art
.
t
Caricature of George Charles Haitd by Tom
Browne
Dorn
Died
GogChrs M
GogChrsllit
8 June 1.855
Bexley, England
31 March 1924 (aged 68)
London, England
George Charles Haitd was born in Bexleyheath, Kent,
Nationality
on 8 June 1855, the second child and eldest son of
FedPainting,
George Haitt senior. His ancestors were French
Huguenot immigrants, an awareness of which seems
to have informed his later catchphrase that "art holds no nationality." 11
English
Illustration, Textile
His great grandfather, William Hatd, and his grandfather, Henry Hait, worked in the calico printing
industry centred around the River Cray in Kent Henry's brother, John, was also a textile designer,
samples of whose "Spring Fashions for 1813" are to be found in the archives of the Victoria and Albert
Museum.
His ftthcr, George Hait (1825-1871), was a prominent early Victorian cashmere shawl designer, albeit
sadly so disillusioned with being a "slave of the fashion of the hour"12 that he actively discouraged his
son from following him into the same profession. Ironically, it was his father's premature death of
smallpox aged 45 which propelled G.C. to do just that when he found himself head of the household at
the age of 16.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George _Charles-Hait/%C3%/A9
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George Charles Hait6 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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HlaitS would later comment in his own Who'Is Who entry that he was "absolutely self-taught" in art. After
moving to London in the early lS70s he began making aname for himself as awallpaper and carpet
designer, later working in metal, tapestry and stained glass.
In 1883 he exhibited the first of many paintings at the Royal Academy. Haitd worked in both oils and
watercolours, specialising in landscapes with many executed on his travels to Venice, Morocco and
Northern Europe. In 1897 his street scene of Dortmund won the Gld Landscape prize at that yetfs
Crystal Palace exhibition. He would usually sign his work "(leo C. HatS' or "G.C. Halt6'.
According to his friend, the great war correspondent
Frederic Villiers: "Inever met a man who was so
rapid with brush and colours in transferring an
impression to his canvas. His memory is so
marvellously correct that one may watch him
produce, within an hour or so, a sketch of a Dutch
market-place with its greyness of atmosphere, a
street in Bruges with the architectural beauty of its
cathedral and houses, or a suburb in Tangier with its
mosques and minarets glowing in the heat against a
deep purple sky, as accurate in tone and drawing as
if he had been seated in front of his subject." 131
Cliffs (1900), Watercolour by G.C. Haitd
As Villiers also commented, Hait6 was "one of the busiest men of his own little stage, for he is a
president or fellow of some eight or nine art societies." 14 Indeed, his talents would earn him
membership of numerous art societies including the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, the
Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Society of Miniature Painters,
the Royal British Colonial Society Of Artists, the National Association of House Painters and
Decorators of England and Wales and, as president the Institute of Decorative Designers.1 l
Haite also wrote and lectured on art and design and in 1897 was elected president of the Nicolson
Institute art gallery in Staffordshire. His inexhaustible social activities even stretched beyond the visual
arts, also involved in the famous literary club the Sette of Odd Volumes (see below), one of the earliest
members of the Japan Society of London and, from 1888, a Fellow of the Linnean Society.
llustration work and The Strand magazine
In 1886 Haitk published PlantStud itsfor Artists, Designersand Art Students. Though it would be the
only book solely written and illustrated by Hait, he edited and contributed drawings to numerous others
including naturalist Edward Tickner Edwardes'Side-Lights of Nature in Quill and Crayon and In The
Green L eafand the Sere by the pseudonymous ornithologist 'A Son Of The Marshes'J"
In late 1890 he was asked by editor George Newnes to provide the cover pen and ink illustration for his
new magazine The Stand, launched in January 189 1. As sales of the magazine took off with the first of
its Sherlock Holmes stories beginning with A Scandal in Bohemia in the July 1891 issue, Haitd's graphic
rendering of Londen's Strand looking Eastwards with the magazine title suspended from telegraph wires
was destined to become an icon of late-Victorian publishing.
Variations of Hait6s design were featured on its sister title, The StrandMusical Magazine, and on
several Sherlock Holmes first edition bound volumes.
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George Charles Haite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
*
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The Sette of Odd Volumes and Oscar
Wilde
In 1883 Hait6 was elected a member of the elite literary club the
Sette of Odd VoluxnesP17 He became its annual vice-president in
1887 and president -known as "Oddship" - from 1891 - 1892. Since
the Sette addressed its members under individual tidles pertaining to
their interests or profession, Haitd was referred to as "The ArtCritic". As president he fashioned his own medal shaped like a
painter's palette and staged a then-novel "Phonograph Evening"
where the members recorded their voices onto an Edison wax
Phonograph cylinder. Even more revolutionary for the club, it was
under Haitd's presidency that the Sette broke with male-dominated
tradition by staging its first mixed "Ladies Evening". 181
Other than its core membership of "Brothers", the Sette attracted
many esteemed guests to its supper evenings and it was here that
Haitd met, among others, Jerome K. Jerome, Aubrey Beardsley,
John Tenniel, Charles Dickens, Jr. and, on more than one occasion, Oscar Wilde.
The Strand annual 1894
There are records of at least four meetings with Wilde, the earliest being a report in the Pall Mal
Gazelle of a preliminary gathering of "The British Association Of British Artists" at London's Grosvenor
House on 8 June 1888: Hait was there representing "art applied to industry" while Wilde was present as
editor of The Woman's World magazine. Fellow Sette member Edward Heron-Allen ("The
Necromancer") also records Haitt and Wilde in the same verse of a poem detailing a club dinner on 8
January 1890 when after Wilde's "gay and apt oration" Haitd launched into a congratulatory "panegyric".
At the following month's Sette meeting Hait 's special guest was Oscar's brother, journalist Willie
Wilde.
The London Sketch Club
-
In the spring of 1898 Hait6 was instrumental in the formation of the
London Sketch Club, a breakaway faction of the prestigious
Langham Sketching Club where he had acted as president from
1883 until 1887. The catalyst for this split in ranks was a seemingly
petty argument over hot or cold suppers. Those with a preference
for hot suppers including Tom Browne, John Hassall, Dudley Hardy
and Phil May left the Langham to create their own rebel drawing
society. Haitd was asked to join them as inaugural president and the
London Sketch Club was formed, holding its first dinner on April
Fool's Day.
Although Hait6 sat for a formal oil portrait by Frank O'Sullivan, it is
through the many caricatures and drawings in the archives of the
London Sketch Club that we have the most vivid representations of
both his physical appearance and eccentric mannerisms, frequently
depicted mid-oration, arms gesticulating wildly, hair on end and
sporting an impressive Jimmy Finlayson-style soup-strainer moustache. Such was Hait6's habit of
speech-making it made him a frequent target of affectionate ribbing from other members. At the time of
1899 London Sketch Club
cartoon of Haitt by Dudley
Hardy
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George Charles Haiti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Wis presidency the club's supper guests included Robert Baden-Powell and Arthur Conan Doyle with
whom Haiti shared a love of cricket.
After four years as president Haiti was persuaded to step down in 1902, after which the club would elect
a new president every year. Despite his previous desertion, Haiti was still welcomed at the Langham
Sketching Club and would be re-elected its president one last time in 1908.191
Death and legacy
In 1883 George married Fanny Hodgkinson and settled in the new garden suburb of Bedford Park near
Chiswick. He lived and worked at two separate addresses there, both of which he christened Ormsby
Lodge. The couple had one daughter, Elsie Blanche Evelyn Frances Haiti (1889-1971). An invalid for
the last nine years of his life, Haiti died on 31 March 1924. His widow Fanny remained at Ormsby
Lodge, The Avenue, Bedford Park until her death in 1935.
A selection of work by both Haiti and his namesake father can be viewed in the prints and drawings
collection of the Victoria and Albert museumn, Kensington, London.
External links
"
George Charles Haiti page at Artnet (http://www.arhetcom/art t2 1042/george-charleshaitelitmi)
" The London Sketch Club website (http://www.londonsketchclub.coni)
" Victoria and Albert museum website (htt://www.vam.ac.uk)
Notes and references
I.
Cuppleditch, David, The London Sketch Club. Alan Sutton Publishing. 1994. p 25.
2. A Young, Hilary, Designs For ShawLs. Webb & Bower. 1988. p 12.
3.A Villiers, Frederic, PeacefulPersonalitiesand Warriors Bold. Harper & Brothers. 1907. p 28.
4.AVilliers,
Frederic, Peaceful Piersonalitiesand Warriors Bold. Harper & Brothers. 1907. p 28.
5A Who Was Who 1916-1 928, 1992 reprint: ISBN 0-7136-3143-0. A &C Black
6. A.Jordan, Denham. In The Green Leafand the Sere. 1896. London. Thlbner & Co.
7.A Villiers, Frederic, Peaceful Personalitiesand Warriors Bold. Harper & Brothers. 1907. p 29.
8. 1. bttpi/www.arvhive.org/details/booklets04clubgoog.
9.A Cuppleditcb, David, The London Sketch Club. Alan Sutton Publishing. 1994.
A
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George _Charles_Hait /C3*/A9"
Categories: 1855 births 11924 deaths I English painters IEnglish designers I English illustrators jArthur
Conan Doyle I Oscar Wilde
" This page was List modifled on 15 October 2010 at 18:19.
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http://emnwkipediaor/wiki/Georg
CharlesHai/*C3%/A9
10/17/2010
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