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Lot description
LOUIS RHEAD (1857–1926) 'THE SNAKE QUEEN' pen and ink, signed lower right LOUIS RHEAD, framed 42.5cm x 33cm (frame size 65cm x 53.5cm) Louis Rhead was an English-born illustrator, author and graphic designer who emigrated to America at the age of twenty-four. With his father a highly respected gilder and ceramicist, Rhead spent much of his childhood attending his father’s art classes and working in the Staffordshire art potteries along with his siblings. Demonstrating an exceptional talent, his father sent him to Paris for three years to continue his studies, before returning to an art scholarship at the National Art Training School, now Royal College of Art in London. Shortly after graduation, Rhead was offered a position as Art Director for the U.S. publishing firm of D. Appleton in New York and emigrated to the US. In the 1890s Rhead rapidly gained popularity as a poster artist. His work made a regular appearance in Century Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar, and in 1895 he won a Gold Medal for Best American Poster Design at the first International Poster Show in Boston. By the early 1900s poster art was in decline and Rhead turned his attention to children’s book illustrations, producing designs for treasured classics such as The Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Robin Hood.