William Strang (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) was a Scottish painter and printmaker, notable for illustrating the works of Bunyan, Coleridge and Kipling.

Early life

Strang was born at

Dumbarton Dumbarton (; , or ; or , meaning 'fort of the Britons (historical), Britons') is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven, Dunbartonshire, River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary. ...

, the son of Peter Strang, a builder, and was educated at the

Dumbarton Academy Founded in ''1485'', Dumbarton Academy (formerly Dumbarton Grammar School) is a non-denominational, Mixed-sex education, co-educational state secondary school. The school is located in the Historical town of Dumbarton, Scotland. History Ear ...

. For fifteen months after leaving school he worked in the counting-house of a firm of shipbuilders, then in 1875, when he was sixteen, went to London. There, he was a pupil of

Edward Poynter Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Baronet (20 March 183626 July 1919) was an English painter, designer, and Drawing, draughtsman, who served as President of the Royal Academy. Life Poynter was the son of architect Ambrose Poynter. He was born in P ...

for three months, before studying drawing and etching under

Alphonse Legros Alphonse Legros (; 8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911) was a French, later British, painter, etcher, sculptor, and medallist. He moved to London in 1863 and later was naturalized as British. He was important as a teacher in the British etching ...

at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

for six years. Strang had great success as an etcher and became assistant master in the etching class. He was one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, and his work was part of its first exhibition in 1881. Some of his early plates were published in ''

The Portfolio ''The Portfolio'' was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British monthly art magazine published in London from 1870 to 1893. It was founded by Philip Gilbert Hamerton and promoted contemporary printmaking, especially etching, and ...

'' and other art magazines.

Work

He worked in many techniques:

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

drypoint Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio (printmaking), intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically iden ...

mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the intaglio (printmaking), intaglio family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzo ...

, sand-ground mezzotint, burin engraving,

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

and

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

. He cut a large

wood engraving Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively l ...

of a man ploughing, later published by the Art for Schools Association. A privately produced catalogue of his engraved work contained more than three hundred items. Amongst his earlier works were ''Tinkers'', ''St. Jerome'', ''A Woman Washing Her Feet'', ''An Old Book-stall with a Man Lighting His Pipe from a Flare'', and ''The Head of a Peasant Woman'' on sand-ground mezzotint. Later plates such as ''Hunger'', ''The Bachelor's End'' and ''The Salvation Army'' were also important. Some of his best etchings were done as series—one of the earliest, illustrating poet William Nicholson's ''Ballad of Aken Drum'', is remarkable for clear, delicate workmanship in the shadow tones, showing great skill and power over his materials, and for strong drawing. Another praised series was ''

The Pilgrim's Progress ''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is commonly regarded as one of the most significant works of Protestant devotional literature and of wider early moder ...

'', revealing austere sympathy with

John Bunyan John Bunyan (; 1628 – 31 August 1688) was an English writer and preacher. He is best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', which also became an influential literary model. In addition to ''The Pilgrim' ...

's teaching.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

's '' Ancient Mariner'' and Strang's own ''Allegory of Death'' and ''The Plowman's Wife'', have served him with suitable imaginative subjects. Some of

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

's stories were also illustrated by him, and his likeness of Kipling was one of his most successful portrait plates. Other etched portraits included those of Ernest Sichel and of his friend Joseph Benwell Clark, with whom Strang collaborated in illustrating

Lucian Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridi ...

's '' True History'' (1894) '' Baron Munchausen'' (1895) and ''

Sinbad the Sailor Sinbad the Sailor (; or Sindbad) is a fictional mariner and the hero of a Literary cycle, story-cycle. He is described as hailing from Baghdad during the early Abbasid Caliphate (8th and 9th centuries A.D.). In the course of seven voyages thr ...

and

Ali Baba "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" () is a folk tale in Arabic added to the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' in the 18th century by its French translator Antoine Galland, who heard it from Syrian storyteller Hanna Diyab. As one of the most popu ...

'' (1896).

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

, Sir Henry Newbolt, and other distinguished men also sat for Strang. Proofs from these plates have been much valued.

Painting

Strang produced many paintings, portraits, nude figures in landscapes, and groups of peasant families, which were exhibited at 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 ...

, The International Society, and several German exhibitions. He painted a decorative series of scenes from the story of

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

for the library of a

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...

landowner named Hodson; they were exhibited at the

Whitechapel Whitechapel () is an area in London, England, and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in east London and part of the East End of London, East End. It is the location of Tower Hamlets Town Hall and therefore the borough tow ...

exhibition in 1910. He made some drawings of the nude figure in silver point and red and black chalk. He also painted

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

s, mostly small in size. In later years he developed a style of drawing in red and black chalk, with the whites and high lights rubbed out, on paper brushed with wash. His method gives qualities of delicate modelling and refined form and gradations akin to the drawings of

Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; ; – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a German-Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He ...

. He drew portraits in this manner of many members of the

Order of Merit The Order of Merit () is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by Edward VII, admission into the order r ...

for the royal library at

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a List of British royal residences, royal residence at Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, about west of central London. It is strongly associated with the Kingdom of England, English and succee ...

. In 1902 Strang retired from the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, as a protest against the inclusion in its exhibitions of etched or engraved reproductions of pictures. His work was subsequently seen principally in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, the Society of Twelve and the International Society, to which he was elected in 1905. Strang was also elected an associate engraver of the Royal Academy when that degree was revived in 1906. William Strang was master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1907, where his portrait can be seen. He is buried at

Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of North Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in P ...

, London. Image:Vita sackville-west.jpg, ''Lady with a Red Hat'' (

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful nov ...

) (1918; Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow) Image:William Strang - The Temptation - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Temptation'' (1899;

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

)

Literary works

Strang also ventured into literature, creating "Death and the Ploughman's Wife", an illustrated ballad in 1888 (published 1894 by Lawrence and Bullen). He also wrote short stories, but these were not published.

Recognition

Strang was a member of the Art Workers' Guild, being elected as Master in 1907. In 1918, he became President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers and in 1921 was elected an Engraver Member of the Royal Academy.

Family

In 1885, William Strang married Agnes McSymon Rogerson (d. 1933), also from Dumbarton. They had four sons and one daughter, Nancy. Their sons Ian Strang (1886–1952) and David Strang (1887–1967) were both artists. William had at least one granddaughter, Joan Strang, born of David's short-lived marriage to the English soprano Dora Labbette. In 1955 David Strang gave impressions of the bulk of William Strang's etchings to the

National Gallery of Scotland The National (formerly the Scottish National Gallery) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by William Henry Playfa ...

, many of which he had annotated for clarification of the subject matter.National Gallery of Scotland: David Strang Gift, collection notes

Etchings

File:William Strang, Cause of the Poor.jpeg, ''The Cause of the Poor'', 1890 File:William Strang etching, Henry Austin Dobson, 1895.jpg,

Henry Austin Dobson Henry Austin Dobson (18 January 1840 – 2 September 1921), commonly Austin Dobson, was an England, English poet and essayist. Life He was born at Plymouth, the eldest son of George Clarisse Dobson, a civil engineer, of French descent. Wh ...

, 1895 File:William Strang The author Rudyard Kipling.jpg, ''

'', 1901 File:David Strang by William Strang, c.1915.jpg, His son '' David Strang'', c. 1915 File:The cover of Death and the Ploughman's Wife by William Strang.jpg, The cover of ''Death and the Ploughman's Wife'' File:William Strang - 1901 - The Doings of Death - 05 - Death the Judge.jpg, ''Death the Judge'', from the twelve-image portfolio ''The Doings of Death'' (1901) File:William Strang (1859 - 1921) - Old Walls And Roman Viaduct, Segovia - ABDAG007070 - Aberdeen City Council (Archives, Gallery and Museums Collection).jpg, alt=etching of houses, with viaduct in background on the ''Old Walls And Roman Viaduct,

Segovia Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is located in the Meseta central, Inner Pl ...

References

; Attribution

External links

*
Short biography of William Strang at 'Yellow Nineties Online'

''Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves''
illustrated by Strang and Joseph Benwell Clark, openly online in the

University of Florida Digital Collections The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) are supported by the University of Florida Digital Library Center in the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) comprise a ...

Laurence Binyon, ''William Strang: Catalogue of his etched work'' (1906)
complete at wikimedia.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Strang, William 1859 births 1921 deaths People from Dumbarton 19th-century British engravers 20th-century British engravers 19th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters 20th-century Scottish painters Scottish printmakers Scottish engravers Scottish etchers Royal Academicians People educated at Dumbarton Academy Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery Masters of the Art Worker's Guild 19th-century Scottish male artists 20th-century Scottish male artists