Charles Stewart: Black and White Gothic

Lovely little exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at Charles Stewart’s illustrations for the book Uncle Silas.

Stewart had become haunted by the novel and began his illustrations in the Second World War when he was working as an ARP warden. He researched the period of the novel including buying period clothes and putting them on mannequins to study how they sat on a figure.

It was interesting to see that he’d discovered the book was being filmed in 1947, a year before his book came out, so he visited the set and took photos and made sketches. The show talked about how the firm then influenced his drawings.

The exhibition included his large format drawings, the smaller page sized format, the binding designs, designs for chapter headings and footings and even his proof copy. The pictures were very sharply drawn with, as the title suggests, a very gothic feel. It tied in with the recent exhibition at the British Library really well.

 

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