Arthur A. Dixon: Artist
Posted in Art, Artist on Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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Arthur A. Dixon was a prolific English book illustrator, his work described as “conventional and prosaic with sentimental overtones, but generally competent” in Dictionary of British Book Illustrators.
Born in St. Pancras, London, on 8 May 1872, Arthur Augustus Dixon was the second son of Richard Dixon, a grainer and marbler (a technique used in painting to give surfaces the look of polished marble) and his wife Rosa. Arthur grew up in St. Pancras, where his father died in 1887. Rosa subsequently moved to Islington with Arthur and his brothers, Frederick and Herbert.
He was married to Cecil Elsie Soweby in Steyning, Sussex in 1899 and had a daughter, Elsie, born in 1900.
Arthur was already working as an artist by the age of 18 and went on to produce illustrations for dozens of books, notably for London based Ernest Nister and Glasgow based Collins’ Clear-Type Press and Blackie & Sons between 1899 and the 1920s. His work included illustrations for schoolgirl novels by Angela Brazil, Elsie Oxenham and Bessie Marchant, numerous fairy tale books and editions of classic novels by Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Kingsley, Victor Hugo, Washington Irving and many others.
He contributed 6 colour plates and 70 halftone illustrations to the volume Child Characters from Dickens (1905). He also contributed to Collins Children’s Annual, Tuck’s Annual and Pearson’s Magazine.
Dixon died in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, in 1959.
Many more pictures by Arthur A. Dixon can be found at the Look and Learn picture library.