Summary
WILLIAM Heath Robinson is one of the few people whose name has entered the language, describing any oddball contraption that seems to be held together by string. It derives from the strange gadgets he created for some of his comic drawings. But, as this exhibition reveals, Heath Robinson was much more. He was painting and drawing from the very start of the 20th Century, the earliest examples in this exhibition dating from 1902. Illustrations for children's books were what seemed to provide the bread and butter and those for his own book, The Adventures of Uncle Lubin, are typical of their period. Drawn with precision but a sense of humour, they do have their nightmarish qualities. In three drawings, Uncle Lubin is seen holding a baby beneath a tree, looking surprised when a pelican pokes its head from the branches and finally aghast as the baby disappears inside the bird's bill. Originally in black and white, the drawings have been coloured for exhibition. Heath Robinson's drawings from Shakespeare also have their Gothic quality, particularly in a landscape scene from Twelfth Night. An illustration for a Kipling book A Song of the English (1909) reveals bodies washed up on a beach. And sketches for a 1908 book on Rabelais reveal a gallery of grotesque caricature heads worthy of Dickens but somehow darker. Happily there are many comic drawings to brighten the mood, something he was doing in both world wars.
A 1942 drawing shows "The Wrong Way to Come Down in a Parachute" with the hapless airman sitting inside his parachute as it sinks to the ground.See the full content of this document
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Review: Heath Robinson, the Walker
He also created with R G Browne in ...
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