A Brief Pre-Raphaelite

 As you will know by now, I love artists who illustrate in a Pre-Raphaelite style, as an awful lot of them tend to be women, but also you get a snapshot of artists who need to work and get paid so that opens up the field. Another of my passions is how everyone is connected and how looking at an artists can lead you to other well-known Victorians. Before I ramble on too much, let me introduce you to the wonderful art of Miss May Sandheim...

I met May through this extremely tatty copy of Christina Rossetti poems (and yes, I did see that the introduction was by Alexander Smellie, I was just being grown-up about it. Tee hee).  I have a weakness for Goblin Market and own lots of different copies with lots of different illustrations, but always have room for more.  This didn't cost me very much (obviously) and I wanted to know more about May Sandheim, who I admit I knew nothing about.  I ended up in a very wet, cold graveyard. Let's start at the beginning.

from The Nursery Song Book (1908)

Isaac Sandheim (1846-1928) came from Dublin, where he was a dentist.  His father Julius, a Rabbi, had come over from Prussia in 1838 and settled in Ireland.  He married Miriam, who came from Sunderland, in 1843 and had seven children, of whom Isaac was the second eldest. Julius was the First Reader and Secretary of the Dublin Synagogue and may have also worked as a dentist which might therefore have been a family business. Isaac went on to marry Ann Woodburn in 1876 and their first daughter May Catherine was born in Dublin in 1877, on 3rd May, which I'm guessing accounts for her name.  She was followed by Herbert Julius (1882-1926), Lionel Woodburn (1884-1934) and finally Violet Marian (1893-1968).  Although May was born in Dublin, the births of her siblings tell an interesting story - Herbert was born in Glasgow, Lionel was born back in Dublin and finally Violet was born in London, where the family settled at 26-30 King Street in Hammersmith (now a listed building). By 1901, they had moved to 14 Phillimore Gardens in Kensington - to my mind, I was more impressed with King Street as that was a whacking great big house, but the Kensington address is gold-plated and beautiful, so I can see why the Sandheims lived there. 

Until 1889, May was taught at home, but then she was enrolled in the Oxford Gardens School in Kensington.  After that, May attended the Hammersmith School of Art and in 1895 was mentioned in the newspapers for her work in light and shade. A year later she was mentioned again, this time for 'an address for political services rendered' which was presented to the Assistant Secretary of the local Unionist party. Her piece was in black and white between two columns with cherubs carrying a wreath of primroses. At the end of the newspaper piece, it mentioned that May was the daughter of Isaac, one of the local representatives to the Council of the United Synagogue, and a prominent worker for the local Conservative party. Given that the primroses probably referred to the Primrose League who were against Home Rule, I think we can see where the Sandheim family stood on that issue, possibly why they chose to leave Dublin for London.

The Pied Piper (1906)

In 1897, May's portrait of Queen Victoria was on show to a large audience at her studio in Dunsany Road, according to the newspapers. The Brook Green Studios at Dunsany Road were a hub for artists in the 1890s including Edward Fellowes Prynne who would have been one of May's neighbours. The large oil painting of the Queen was on display in 1898 as well, together with her other work at the Hammersmith Industrial Exhibition.  She also won a prize for a drawing of a girl's head at the same exhibition (reported in the Jewish Chronicle which also mentioned her father). Her bookplates appeared in the 1899 exhibition for the Ex Libris Society, showing two plates in black and white, one for herself 'May Kathleen Sandheim' - that brings me to a slight problem May suffers from.  She is recorded as Mary Kathleen, May Kathleen, Mary Catherine etc etc. While all the official records I can find have her as May Catherine, the variations don't help when I am trying to find her. Thank goodness she has an unusual last name because if she was a 'Smith' that would be harder to know if it was her or not.

In the 1901 exhibition of Hammersmith student's work, May was again praised, this time for the character in her work, but she was about to publish the work that would define her. In 1902, a series of 'dainty booklets' entitled Poets of the Renaissance by Sydney Dark and Harry Roberts were published with decorative borders and tailpieces by May. 1903 saw May's profile raise considerably as her work was praised at the Ex Libris Society exhibition, the poetry booklets continued their run and her work appeared in the London Stage Annual at Christmas. 

May's work in bookplates and decorative borders means that her work can crop up anywhere, such as this picture mount for a card of Ellen Terry. Her black and white line images are powerful and she is obviously a skilled illustrator which makes her permanent move to books inevitable and welcome.

1904 saw The Golden Heart and Other Fairy Tales by Violet Jacobs, together with a reprint of Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies with eight new illustrations.  Intriguingly, she illustrated the cookbook The Cult of the Chafing Dish by Frank Schloesser, which luckily we can read here.

In 1907 May teamed up with Frances Brundage for a pair of books Our Wedding and The New Baby (also known as Our Baby in some editions, such as the one for sale here). This was praised in the newspapers as a perfect wedding or new baby present, which is very clever marketing. The year also saw the publication of Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti, published by Andrew Melrose with an introduction by Alexander Smellie (again, great name). The reviews were positive calling May's illustrations 'graceful,' 'beautiful' and 'dainty.' The strong Pre-Raphaelite leaning of the illustrations reminds me of Percy Bulcock from around the same time.

I mean, come on...

The Day Dream (1880) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

How about this one...?

All of that. Her figures look remarkably Jane Morris-esque and remind me of Rossetti's works during the 1860s and 70s. There is something about the swirling heads around her in A Cup for Memory above that oddly reminds me of both the train of spirits in Ferdinand Lured By Ariel by Millias and the gathered queens in this Rossetti illustration...

Either way, the book is filled with extremely Rossettian maidens, mainly sighing.  Okay, one more...

Beautiful.  The Bookseller said that May's illustrations possessed 'a charm and an individuality of their own' while other publications again called her work 'beautiful' and 'graceful'.

Possibly not quite as graceful is The Nursery Song Book from the same year, this time with extremely colourful illustrations.  I much prefer the black and white, although to be honest, all of them are slightly demented. I'm a particular fan of Curly Locks, which is unaccountably sinister...

Also, it looks like the children on the front cover are screaming and trying to surrender...

I mean, what is going on there? I'm guessing she is meant to be singing, but they look like they are desperately trying to stop the sun from rising.  That is a very large sun.  Okay, one more that is slightly less disturbing...

That's better. By 1908, May's reputation for graceful illustration was growing and the edition of Christina Rossetti's poems continued to be a hit, with seemingly new audiences finding it throughout the year and the publisher continuing to promote it. Then suddenly, at the age of only 32, May died in Bournemouth.

I was confused as May lived in Kensington, but putting together her young age and the seaside location, I thought that maybe she had gone to the seaside to improve her health and sadly it had not worked.  Then I saw a brief mention of her place of death - Alderney Manor.

Whilst I was a bit confused by the fact that Augustus John lived there for a while, from around 1901 to 1911 it was a sanatorium specialising in consumption. I think it is entirely likely that May had TB (like that other fabulous line illustrator Aubrey Beardsley) which ultimately killed her. She is buried in the Bournemouth East graveyard. I went and found her on a particularly chilly afternoon...

I find an awful lot of extremely talented artists ended up in book illustration, often at the expense of their 'fine' art and are therefore ignored by the official History of Art (TM).  There are some, such as Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale who managed to combine the two, getting paid twice on her illustrations as she made them into full size paintings. Mostly they fall into May's category, producing the most beautiful works of art held between two covers. I wonder if it was her preference, as I sometimes guess that artists move to illustration in order to get paid on a regular basis but money was not a problem for May. It is definitely a skill as her work stands out among other more bland and generic illustration of this period, not just because it heavily leans into Pre-Raphaelitism but it makes Rossetti work in black and white (arguably better than Rossetti managed). It is definitely time for us to include the other mediums in our study of Pre-Raphaelitism and its legacy so that May Sandheim's work can be rediscovered.