Harry Rountree facts for kids

Harry Rountree (26 January 1878 – 26 September 1950) was a prolific illustrator working in England around the turn of the 20th century. Born in Auckland, New Zealand, he moved to London in 1901, when he was 23 years old.

Life

Harry Rountree was born in 1878 to Irish banker, Stephen Gilbert Rountree (5 November 1851 - 9 September 1918) and Julia Bartley (24 December 1851 - 29 October 1930), the niece of prominent New Zealand architect Edward Bartley.

Rountree was educated at Auckland’s Queen’s College, and began working at Wilson and Horton Printers in the city, designing show-cards, advertisements, and product labels. He progressed to become special artist for the Auckland Weekly News, published by Wilson and Horton, with his earliest signed drawings, quite serious in tone and subject matter, appearing in 1899. New Zealand formed part of the readership of the London periodical press at this time and Rountree developed the ambition to join the ranks of its most prominent illustrators. As he later stated in an interview with A B Cooper for the Boy's Own Paper:

'Yes. Auckland is my native city and New Zealand is my nation...though it may be glorious for sheep, for the simple life, for lots of fun, yet it is no place for the black-and-white artist who wants to sell his wares. It seems scarcely credible, and yet, though I had done hundreds of drawings before I made the voyage of twelve thousand miles to London, I had never seen an original – except my own – and I was simply dying to see the little bits of Bristol-board containing the work of the men I most admired in the English illustrated magazines and papers'.

The first stage to realizing his ambition came with his departure from his employer at the beginning of March 1901:

'A pleasing ceremony took place at the Herald office on the 1st of March, when the artistic staff of the Weekly News, and friends from other departments, gathered to bid farewell to Mr H Rountree, Weekly News special artist, who shortly leaves for London. Mr Palmer, head of the artistic department, made the presentation, which took the form of a high-class camera, with silverplate, suitably inscribed.'

He travelled to England on the Orient Line steamship RMS Omrah, taking with him a portfolio of his work to impress British art editors. Going via the Suez Canal, he left Sydney on 10 April 1901 with members of the New Zealand bowling team. His sketches of one of their number, J V Dingle, completed on arrival in London, were sent home for publication by his former employer.

Rather than travel by ship the whole way, Rountree added a Continental flavour to the close of his journey, as was described for the New Zealand Herald by 'Our own correspondent. London, June 8':

'Mr Rountree, who has been on the artistic staff of the Auckland Weekly News for some years, arrived in London last Saturday evening, by way of Paris, having come by the SS Omrah to Marseilles, and crossed France by rail. Mr Rountree tells me that the principal object of his visit to the Mother Country is to extend his artistic studies in black and white work. His present intention is to remain in England for about two years'.

At that time the magazine and book market was flourishing. For two years he attempted to commissions. In 1903, the editor of the magazine 'Little Folks' gave Rountree a commission to illustrate a story. It was after this commission that Rountree's career began to flourish and he became in demand illustrator. Rountree is noted for his illustrations of British golf courses and golfing caricatures. His work features in publications such as; The Strand, Cassell's, Pearson's, The Sketch, The Illustrated London News, Playtime, Little Folks, and many others.

Rountree was one of the leading illustrators selected by Percy Bradshaw for inclusion in his The Art of the Illustrator (1917-1918) which presented a separate portfolio for each of twenty illustrators. Rountree also served as a consultant at the Percy Bradshaw's Press Art School, a school teaching painting, drawing, and illustration by correspondence. The consultants gave feedback on the work submitted by the students.

During the First World War, he served as a captain in the Royal Engineers.

Rountree produced well-liked cartoons for the magazine Punch from 1905 to 1939, and also created advertising, posters and book illustrations for writers such as P. G. Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Death

Harry Rountree died of cancer in the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, Cornwall on 26 September 1950, aged 72 years, being survived by his wife and two children. Fellow artist Bernard Ninnes wrote an appreciation of his work to accompany his obituary in the St Ives Times:

'As an artist he stood alone in his own sphere as the supreme delineator of bird and animal life. His drawings and paintings in this specialised field bore the authentic stamp of deepest study and intimate familiarity of these subjects; the expression of anatomical diversity, with the constructional variety of fur and feather revealed the sum of a lifetime's keenest observation...To his animals and birds he often gave a whimsical or semi-human twist which has made them loved by generations of children...

When first I knew him some twenty years ago at the London Sketch Club and The Savage his charming personality, the wit of his drawings and rare ability as a raconteur made him outstanding in a group which included such names as John Hassall, W Heath Robinson and Lawson Wood. He was one of the grand company of illustrators of the Edwardian and first Georgian period [George V 1910-1936], a time when illustration had reached a pinnacle of excellence, and Harry Rountree was in the van'.

The probate valuation of his estate was £4581 1s 7d.

A commemorative bronze plaque by the sculptor W. C. H. King was erected on Smeaton's Pier, St Ives for his contribution to the artistic and civic life of the town.

Selected works

• S. H. Hamer, Harry Rountree, Archibald's Amazing Adventure, Or, The Tip-top Tale (London: Cassell and Co., 1905)

• (3 "from old catalog")
• An article and full bibliography by Michael Pirie is contained in Studies in Illustration nos 59-63 published by the Imaginative Book Illustration Society www.bookillustration.org