Charles Edmund Brock (5 February 1870 – 28 February 1938) was a widely published English painter,

line art Line art or line drawing is any image that consists of distinct straight lines or curved lines placed against a background (usually plain). Two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects are often represented through shade (darkness) or hue (co ...

ist and book illustrator, who signed most of his work C. E. Brock. He was the eldest of four artist brothers, including Henry Matthew Brock, also an illustrator.

Early life

Brock was born on 5 February 1870 in

Holloway, London Holloway is an area of North London in the London Borough of Islington, borough of Islington, north of Charing Cross, which follows the line of the Holloway Road (A1 road (Great Britain), A1). At the centre of Holloway is the Nag's Head, London, ...

. The family later settled in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

. He studied art briefly under sculptor Henry Wiles.

Name confusion

Charles Edmund Brock of Cambridge was sometimes confused with the unrelated Charles Edmond Brock (1882–1952) of London,To confuse things even more, the London Brock was registered at Charles Edmund at birth, but opted to use Edmond rather than Edmund as this second name. a portrait painter who painted members of the Royal Family and the aristocracy, and was the son of English Sculptor Thomas Brock RA (1 March 184722 August 1922). The confusion was so great that they even found themselves paying each other's bills. They solved by agreeing that Charles Edmund of Cambridge would stop using Edmund and that Charles Edmond of London would stop using Charles. In Graves' ''Dictionary of Contributors'' to the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

he lists the Cambridge Brock as Charles E. Brock - Painter, and the London Brock as C. Edmond Brock - Painter. This was not the only confusion. One report of a Cambridge Council meeting attributed the Victoria Memorial to C. E. Brock. ''The name of the sculptor to which the commission for a bust of Queen Victoria is entrusted is Mr. Thomas Brock, R.A., and not, of course, Mr. C. E, Brock, stated by a mistake which crept into our report of the meeting last week.''

Work

Brock received his first book commission at the age of 20 in 1890. He became very successful, and illustrated books for authors such as

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, and

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. Brock also contributed pieces to several magazines such as '' The Quiver'', '' The Strand'', and '' Pearsons''. He used the Cambridge college libraries for his "picture research." In illustration Brock is best known for his line work, initially working in the tradition of

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, but he was also a skilled colourist. As a painter he received plaudits for his realism and vibrancy he created in his work. Only a small quantity of his paintings have been located which is why their prices have been so high. Brock and his brothers maintained a Cambridge studio filled with various curios, antiques, furniture, and a costume collection. They owned a large collection of

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costume prints and fashion plates, and had clothes specially made as examples for certain costumes. Using these, family members modeled for each other. Unequivocally the most famous and valuable paintings in Brock's career were his golf paintings – ''The Bunker''; ''The Drive;'' and ''The Putt'' – all of which were painted in 1894 as part of the same series.These paintings were acquired together by a Japanese collector in 1991 for $1.5 million. The most valuable of these is ''The Putt'', which was repainted due to the position of the caddy and bystander as the commissioner of the painting wanted to bring himself, the putter, more into the forefront of the painting. The initial unsigned painting is considered to be the more impressive of the two versions, and is even used as the print for postcards and posters sold in many golf museums. Charles E Brock - Punch 30 March 1910

Brock published 109 illustrationsTechnically, '' Punch'' called these illustrations sketches as they were accompanied by dialogue. Punch reserved the name cartoons for illustrations without any accompanying text, or only with a title. in Punch between 6 February 1901 and 30 March 1910. He output in Punch tapered off after 1905 and he did not publish any more work in Punch after 1910. Brock continued to work on book illustration and on portraits. Some of the portraits by Brock in national collections date from the 1920. He continued to illustrate books right up until his death, with

Gunby Hadath John Edward Gunby Hadath (30 April 187117 January 1954) was an England, English schoolmaster, lawyer, company promoter, songwriter, journalist, and author of boarding school stories. He is best remembered for over seventy novels (almost all juve ...

's ''Pamela: A Story for Girls'' (1938)This was one of the school stories for girls written under Hadath's female pseudonym, Florence Gunby Hadath. being one of the last books he illustrated. Books he was working on at the time of his death were completed by other illustrators. Brock was one of the twenty leading illustrators selected by Percy Bradshaw for a portfolio in his 1917/1918 '' The Art of the Illustrator''. Brock was an occasional exhibitor at various venues. He died on 28 February 1938 in Cambridge.

Style

The approach of C.E. Brock's work varied with the sort of story he was illustrating. Some was refined and described as "sensitive to the delicate, teacup-and-saucer primness and feminine outlook of the early Victorian novelists," while other work was "appreciative of the healthy, boisterous, thoroughly English characters" – soldiers, rustics, and "horsey types." Other illustrations were grotesqueries drawn to amuse children looking at or reading storybooks.

Assessment

Joseph Pennell in his ''Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtmanship . . .'' made the following assessment of Brock at the very start of his career as an illustrator: ''Mr. Brock has come out with "Hood's Humorous Poems". His drawing can scarce be called original, — there are many reminiscences in it, — but his humour, dramatic action, and his arrangement are quite his own. H is sense of illustration is good, and is well shown in the concentration on the black horse and black cap of the huntsman in the title; possibly this is exaggerated, but it is a good sort of exaggeration. In the other drawing, " The Supper Superstition", the story is extremely well told with movement and go. There are several other drawings in the book quite as good; enough of them to prove that Mr. Brock has something to say for himself, besides showing how well he has studied other people.''

Examples of complete book illustrations

The following examples show what a complete set of illustrations for a single book look like.

An adventure novel

Brock illustrated a new edition of

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

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for Service & Paton in 1897. The new edition had 16 full page illustrations. New illustrations were one of the ways in which publishers tried to sell titles were had already had a number of editions. The illustrations are by courtesy of

The British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

the whole book is available on-line. The illustrations for Ivanhoe would have benefited from the props that the Brock's kept in their studio to serve as examples for arms, clothing, and so on. File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page015.jpg, Whipping File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page046.jpg, Palmer File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page103.jpg, Challenge File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page152.jpg, Quarter-staff File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page165.jpg, Harp File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page189.jpg, Seized File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page194.jpg, Torture File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page256.jpg, Haughty File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page283.jpg, Curious File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page295.jpg, Hard blow File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page330.jpg, Rope-led File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page352.jpg, Arrogance File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page385.jpg, Pleading File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page406.jpg, Signal File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page076.jpg, Contrition File:Illustration by C E Brock for Ivanhoe - opposite page424.jpg, Yield

A book for children

Lucas Malet was the pseudonym of Mary St Leger Kingsley (4 June 1852 – 27 October 1931), a Victorian novelist. Although most of here output was for adults, she did produce some juvenile fiction In 1887, Kegan Paul & Co.Keegan Paul & Co has long ago been subsumed into

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

. published Malet's short

Catalogue shows that the 8º size book had 168-page in the 1887 edition and 175 in the 1909 edition. book ''Little Peter: A Christmas Morality for Children of any Age'' with nine full page illustrations including the frontispiece, and several smaller ones, by Paul Hardy.The edition with the illustrations by Paul Hardy is available on

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

and elsewhere. The book tells the story of a small boy who befriends a very ugly and socially-despised man, who saves him in the end. The story was apparently popular as it was reprinted numerous times, most recently in 2010. In 1909, Henry Frowde and

Hodder & Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.H ...

Notes

References

External links

works by Charles Edmund Brock
in public collections in the UK.

of

John Venn John Venn, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, FSA (4 August 1834 – 4 April 1923) was an English mathematician, logician and philosopher noted for introducing Venn diagrams, which are used in l ...

by Brock, and a link to a site about Venn * * *
UNCG American Publishers' Trade Binding: C.E. Brock

* ttps://www.flickr.com/search/?tags=artist:name=%22Charles%20Edmund%20Brock%22 C. E. Brock's illustrations from the British Library Flickr account*
MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image Repository)
Illustrations By C. E. Brock for The Heroes of Asgard by Annie and Eliza Keary, 1930. {{DEFAULTSORT:Brock, C.E. 1870 births 1938 deaths 19th-century British illustrators British children's book illustrators British fantasy artists Illustrators of fairy tales 20th-century British illustrators Artists from London English illustrators