G. H. Evison

George Henry Evison was a Lancastrian artist and book illustrator who illustrated many cheaper books with his strong line drawings. He illustrated magazines with both line drawings and colour wash drawings.

Early life

Evison was born on 25 November 1871 in Bootle, Lancashire. He was the second child of William Flinn Evison, a clerk for the Liverpool and America shipping trade, and Sarah Ellen Emson, the daughter of a publican. His parents married on 28 May 1867 at St Simon's Parish in Liverpool. Evison's elder sister Lillie died shortly after he was born. Evison's father died the following year, before Evison's first birthday.

Training

Evison began his career with a five-year apprenticeship to a lithographic artist in Liverpool, while attending evening classes at the Liverpool School of Art. Typically, apprenticeships began at 14 or 15, and Evison would have been fourteen in November 1885. He attended the Liverpool School of Art He was attending the school in September 1888 when he was awarded a small class prize for attendance and success in exams.
However, at the end of his apprenticeship, he was not satisfied with lithography, and gave it up in favour of pen and ink. He studied pen and ink drawing full-time under John Finnie at the Liverpool School of Art, where he won a scholarship worth £60.
He had already begun to have some drawings accepted by Magazines like Pick-me-up or Judy and this success led to him coming to London and joining the Slade School where he worked for 12 months. His April 1900 profile in The Poster and his cover illustration for that month indicate that he had found acceptance in London.

Exhibiting

Evison exhibited seven times at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool and four times at the Royal Academy. His pieces at the Royal Academy were story illustrations in at least two cases. At least one of his works shown at the Walker Gallery resulted in a sale, Tea-Time sold for £10 in 1894.

Magazine illustration

Initially Evison appears to have concentrated on magazine illustration. He contributed illustrations to a wide range of magazines including:

Judy
The English Illustrated Magazine
The Idler
The Poster
The Wide World Magazine
The Strand Magazine
The Bystander
To-day, where he had already illustrated two serials for Barry Pain by 1900.

The Poster reported that by 1900 Evison had already worked for four of the Newnes publications and four of Pearson's publications as well as other magazines.

Example of pen and ink magazine illustration

Evison was a regular illustrator for George Newnes' Wide World Magazine. He did approximately two dozen illustrations for From Job to Job Around the World by Alfred C. B. Fletcher in Wide World Magazine Volume 37, May–October 1916. The serial story covers the adventures of two young Americans who set out from San Francisco to travel around the world with only $10 between them.

Book illustration

Evison seems to have made a slow start at book illustration. It was only at the end of the first decade of the 20th century that he began to illustrate any significant number of books, and this grew to a flood with his illustrations of the Daily Mail sixpenny novels.
The following list of books illustrated by Evison is far from complete. The principle sources are searches of the Jisc catalogue, Additional libraries are being added all the time, and the catalogue collates national, university, and research libraries. and the page about Evison on the Charles Pearce Project.

No	Author	Year	Title	Publisher	Pages	Notes
1	George MacDonald	1893	A dish of orts: chiefly papers on the imagination, and on Shakspere, Enlarged Edition	London, Sampson Low and Company	vi, 322 p., 8º
2	George Humphery	1900	The haunted room : a phantasmal phantasy	Sands & Co., London	217 p., 7 pl., 8º
3	Eric Lisle	1907	Under Honour's Flag	London, Frederick Warne & Co	vi, 312 p., 8 illus., 8º
4	George MacDonald	1908	Guild Court	London, Edwin Dalton	iv, 331p, illus.
5	George MacDonald	1908	Stephen Archer	London, Edwin Dalton	354 p., Illus.
6	Herbert Escott Inman	1908	The Mill-Lass of Idderleigh	London, Frederick Warne & Co	vi. 424 p., 8º
7	George MacDonald	1908	The vicar's daughter : an autobiographical story	London, Sampson Low and Company	vii,375p., 3pl. 8º
8	George Mac Donald	1908	Weighed and wanting	London, Edwin Dalton	iv, 379 p., fs., 8º
9	Stella. M. Düring	1910	Malicious Fortune	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 154 p., 8º
10	C. Ranger Gull	1910	Retribution	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 150 p., 8º
11	May Wynne	1911	Phil’s Cousins	London, Blackie
12	Effie Adelaide Rowlands	1911	For Ever and a Day	London, Amalgamated Press	136 p., 8º
13	Marie Connor Leighton and Robert Leighton	1911	In the Shadow of Guilt. A novel	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 178 p., 8º
14	Effie Adelaide Rowlands	1911	Leila Vane's Burden	London, Amalgamated Press	138 p., 8º
15	Stanley Portal Hyatt	1911	The Little Brown Brother	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 142 p., 8º
16	William Le Queux	1911	Treasure of Israel	London, Amalgamated Press	124 p., 8º
17	Meredith Nicholson	1912	The Port of Missing Men	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 138 p., 8º
18	Maurice Drake	1912	The Salving of a Derelict	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 112 p.
19	David Graham Phillips	1912	The Second Generation	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 158 p., 8º
20	Mary E. Mann	1912	The Sheep & the Goats	London, Amalgamated Press	vi. 136 p., 8º
21	Annie S. Swan	1913	The Farrants: a story of struggle and victory	London, Charles H. Kelly	352 p., illus., 8º
22	Herbert Escott Inman	1913	Nancy Lee, Mill Lass	London, Frederick Warne	416, 4pl., 8º
23	Herbert Strang	1917	Carry On! A Story of the Fight for Bagdad	London, Humphrey Milford, OUP	277 p., 8º
24	John Lea	1920	Fights for Freedom – thrilling stories of heroic deeds in the Great War	London, The Epworth Press	Illus.
25	T. C. Bridges	1920	Martin Crusoe: a boy’s adventure on Wizard Island	London, George G. Harrap	Col fs., pl., 8º
26	Charles Dickens	1920	The Adventures of Oliver Twist	London, David McKay	Col fs., 4 b&w pl., 8º
27	George Forbes	1920	Adventures in Southern Seas : a tale of the sixteenth century	London, George G. Harrap & Co.	251 p., 8º
28	T. C. Bridges	1921	The sky riders : a stirring tale of adventure round the world	London, George G. Harrap & Co.	192 p., col fs., 4 b&w pl., 8º
29	T. C. Bridges	1923	Men of the Mist	London, George G. Harrap & Co.	4 pl.
30	T. C. Bridges	1926	The Book of Discovery	London, George G. Harrap & Co.	Col fs., 4 b&w pl.
31	John G. Rowe	1926	The Island Mine: a tale of adventure in tropic seas	London, The Epworth Press	Col. fs.
32	Mona Tracy	1927	Rifle and Tomahawk: a stirring tale of the Te Kooti Rebellion	London, George G. Harrap	Col fs., 4 b&w pl.
33	Various	1927	The Lucky Boys’ Budget	London, Blackie & Son.
34	Mona Tracy	1928	Lawless Days: a tale of adventure in Old New Zealand and other South Seas	London, George Harrap & Co.	Col fs., illus.
35	R. J. McGregor	1928	The Secret Jungle	London, The Sheldon Press	160 p., 8º
36	Herbert Strang	1934	The Great Book for Boys	London, Humphrey Milford, OUP
37	T. C. Bridges	1934	Recent Heroes of Modern Adventure	London, George G. Harrap & Co.	Fs.
38	William M. Thayer	UD	From Log-Cabin to White House: Life of James A. Garfield	London, Epworth Press	Col fs., 4 b&w pl.
39	Wingrove Willson	UD	The World of Sport and Adventure	London, Aldine Publishing	Illus.

Example of book illustrations

The following illustrations are not from the cheap editions which featured Evison's strong pen and ink drawings, but from a full-priced Christmas book. The book was ''Under Honour's Flag''

Death

Evison died in the second quarter of 1928, probably in early June. He was buried on 5 June 1928 at All Saints Cemetery in Harrow. At the time of his death, he was still living at his cousin's house at Fulwood, Royston Park, Pinner, where he had lived since at least 1905. He appears not to have left a will.

Assessment

Houfe states that Evison was a particularly good figure artist and that he used pen and ink with heavy body colour.. Thorpe noted that his half-tone drawings in the English Illustrated Magazine were promising. A profound challenge for greater recognition of Evison is that a good deal of book illustration, at least, was for ephemeral editions such as the Daily Mail sixpenny editions. Such cheap editions uses cheap paper and only the boldest of pen and ink art reproduced well. Evison's bold pen and ink drawings were well suited to this constraint. His magazine illustrations covered a much broader range, and were not just restricted to pen and ink work.