Louis Rhead
Louis Rhead was an English-American artist, illustrator, and writer who lived from 1857 to 1926. Rhead is most remembered for his Art Nouveau decorative poster illustrations, for which he was widely acclaimed.
Rhead was born in Etruria, in Staffordshire, England into a family of potters. For several generations, Rhead’s family worked for the Staffordshire Potteries and were artists in their own right. Rhead’s father was highly respected and founded the Fenton School of Art where he taught design and art. Louis and several of his brothers took art classes there. Though his brothers also did well, Louis excelled. Rhead’s father sent him to Paris, France, to study art under Gustave Boulanger, a respected Academic artist. After returning to London, Rhead won a scholarship to study at the National Art Training School in South Kensington, London, England.
In 1883, soon after graduating, Rhead was offered a job in New York City as the Art Director for a publishing firm, D. Appleton. Rhead accepted and moved to America. The following year, he married an American woman, Catherine Yates, and became an American citizen. During the 1890s, Rhead found a lot of work creating poster art. Art Nouveau posters were extremely popular during this time. His art was greatly influenced by Eugène Grasset, an Art Nouveau artist, and William Morris, an Aesthetic and Pre-Raphaelite artist. Rhead’s poster art was well-received, and he had several solo art shows exhibiting his work.
In the early twentieth century, the art world shifted away from poster art. At this time, Rhead turned to his other love of book illustration and writing. Besides illustrating children’s books, Rhead illustrated his own books. An avid fisherman, he furthered the field with his studies of entomology in regards to trout fishing. Rhead continued with books and book illustrations until his death.
Rhead died in 1926 at age 68 from a heart attack. His obituary in The New York Times read that he suffered two heart attacks in a relatively short period of time. These attacks were apparently brought on after a long struggle to hook a 30 lb. turtle that he was hunting that had been ruining the local trout population. The fight for the turtle was said to have taken 30 minutes. Although he was successful, afterwards he immediately suffered his first heart attack and the second one a short while later which killed him.
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