René Bull was a British illustrator and photographer. He was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

on 11 December 1872 to a French mother and an English father. He went to Paris to study engineering, but embarked on an artistic career after meeting and taking drawing lessons from the French satirist and political cartoonist

Caran d'Ache Caran d'Ache was the pseudonym of the 19th century French satirist and political cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré (6 November 1858 – 25 February 1909). The pseudonym comes from russian: карандаш, italic=unset, translit=karandash meani ...

(Emmanuel Poiré). Bull returned to Ireland to contribute sketches and political cartoons to various publications, including the 'Weekly Freeman'. Moving to London in 1892, Bull drew for "Illustrated Brits" and created cartoons in the style of Caran d'Ache for 'Pick-Me-Up' from 1893. In 1896 Bull joined ''Black and White'' illustrated newspaper as a special artist and photographer. In 1898, he covered the Tirah Campaign in India and went on to Sudan for the campaign culminating in the

Battle of Omdurman The Battle of Omdurman was fought during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan between a British–Egyptian expeditionary force commanded by British Commander-in-Chief ( sirdar) major general Horatio Herbert Kitchener and a Sudanese army of the ...

. He went to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

to record the

Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...

until the relief of Ladysmith in March 1900. As he was wounded in 1900, Bull was invalided out. He settled in England and drew cartoons for such magazines as ''Bystander'', ''Chums'', ''London Opinion'', ''Lika Joko''. In ''The Sketch'' Bull created cartoons of humorous inventions, predating those of

William Heath Robinson William Heath Robinson (31 May 1872 – 13 September 1944) was an English cartoonist, illustrator and artist, best known for drawings of whimsically elaborate machines to achieve simple objectives. In the UK, the term "Heath Robinson contr ...

. From 1905 he illustrated books, starting with an edition of Fontaine's 'Fables'. Other major titles he illustrated included ''The Arabian Nights'' (1912), ''Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'' (1913), ''The Russian Ballet'' (1913), ''Carmen'' (1915), ''Andersen's Fairy Tales''. In 1914, Bull joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant and was eventually transferred to the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

where he reached the rank of Major. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Bull joined the Air Ministry for technical duties. He died on 14 March 1942.

Illustrated books

* Jean De La Fontaine – Fables (Nelson, 1905) * Frank A. Saville - Fate's Intruder: A Novel (Heinemann, 1905) * Joel Chandler Harris - Uncle Remus (Nelson, 1906) * The Arabian Nights (Constable, 1912) * Alfred Edwin Johnson - The Russian Ballet (1913) * Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Hodder, 1913) * Prosper Mérimée (Trans. A. E. Johnson) – Carmen (Hutchinson, 1915) * Hubert Strang – The Old Man Of The Mountain (Hodder, 1916) * Jonathan Swift – Gulliver's Travels (1928) * Rose Fyleman - A Garland of Roses: Collected Poems (Methuen, 1928) * Hans Christian Andersen – Fairy Tales (Clowes, c. 1928) * Joel Chandler Harris – Brer Rabbit Plays (Retold by Elizabeth Fleming) (Nelson, 1930) * Jean De La Fontaine – Fables: A Selection (Trans. Shirley Edward) (1935) * Zoo Friends (Blackie, 1939) * Various – The Children's Golden Treasure Book of 1939

Contributions

‘Black and White’ (1892), ‘Chums’ (1892), ‘Pall Mall Budget’ (1893), ‘ILN’ (1893), ‘St. Paul’s’ (1894), ‘Lika Joko’ (1894), ‘English Illustrated Magazine’ (1894–96), ‘Pick-Me-Up: The New Budget’ (1895), ‘The Sketch’ (1895-1918), ‘The Ludgate Monthly’ (c. 1896), ‘The Bystander’ (1904), Punch (1906–07).

References

External links

* * * * 1872 births 1942 deaths British illustrators 19th-century British photographers British war artists British comics artists Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War I Artists from Dublin (city) Place of death missing Photographers from Dublin (city) {{UK-illustrator-stub