Sir William Russell Flint (4 April 1880 – 30 December 1969) was a Scottish artist and illustrator who was known especially for his watercolours of women. He also worked in oils, tempera, and

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

Biography

Flint was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

on 4 April 1880 and was educated at

Daniel Stewart's College Stewart's Melville College (SMC) is an independent day and boarding school in Edinburgh, Scotland. Classes are all boys in the 1st to 5th years and co-educational in Sixth (final) year. It has a roll of about 750 pupils. The school is twinned w ...

and then Edinburgh Institution. From 1894 to 1900 Flint was apprenticed as a lithographic draughtsman while taking classes at the Royal Institute of Art, Edinburgh.Theo Cowdell
"Flint, Sir William Russell"
''Oxford Art Online'' From 1900 to 1902 he worked as a medical illustrator in London while studying part-time at the Heatherley School of Fine Art. He furthered his art education by studying independently at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. He was an artist for ''

The Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication in ...

'' from 1903 to 1907, and produced illustrations for editions of several books, including

H Rider Haggard Sir Henry Rider Haggard (; 22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the lost world literary genre. He was also involved in land reform t ...

's ''

King Solomon's Mines ''King Solomon's Mines'' (1885) is a popular novel by the English Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the ...

'' (1907 edition), W. S. Gilbert's ''Savoy Operas'' (1909), Sir Thomas Malory's ''

Le Morte d'Arthur ' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Rou ...

'' (1910–1911) and

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

's ''

The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, ...

'' (1912). Flint was one of the leading illustrators selected by Percy Bradshaw for inclusion in his '' The Art of the Illustrator'' (1917-1918) which presented a separate portfolio for each of twenty illustrators which was accompanied by a plate showing an illustration typical of Flint's work and five other plates showing the work at five earlier stages of its production.. Flint's coloured illustration shows one naked and one half naked young woman picking fruit on a sea shore. Flint was elected president of Britain's Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours (now the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1936 to 1956, and knighted in 1947. During visits to Spain, Flint was impressed by Spanish dancers, and he depicted them frequently throughout his career. He enjoyed considerable commercial success but little respect from art critics, who were disturbed by a perceived crassness in his eroticized treatment of the female figure,Postle and Vaughan 1999, p. 76. clearly borrowing inspiration from similar works by Lawrence Alma-Tadema.''Fantasy, Fashion & Affection'' - Jay A. Gertzman Flint was also a published author of short stories. In 1965, a collection of his short stories were published as a limited edition of 500 titled ''Shadows in Arcady''; for which Flint designed the graphical layout and the illustrations. Previously, Flint's story "The Angelus" had been published in The Times newspaper. Flint was active as an artist and a writer until his death in London on 30 December 1969.

Illustrations to ''Savoy Operas''

''Savoy Operas'' is a collection of four opera librettos by W. S. Gilbert that had been set to music by

Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...

, originally published 1909. Princess Ida File:William Russell Flint - W. S. Gilbert - Savoy Operas - Princess Ida 1.jpg, "I can tell a woman's age in half a minute—and I do!" File:William Russell Flint - W. S. Gilbert - Savoy Operas - Princess Ida 2.jpg, "Must we, till then, in prison cell be thrust?" File:William Russell Flint - W. S. Gilbert - Savoy Operas - Princess Ida 3.jpg, Enter Princess, reading. File:William Russell Flint - W. S. Gilbert - Savoy Operas - Princess Ida 4.jpg, Enter the "Daughters of the Plough," bearing Luncheon. File:William Russell Flint - W. S. Gilbert - Savoy Operas - Princess Ida 6.jpg, The Gate yields. Hildebrand and Soldiers rush in. File:William Russell Flint - W. S. Gilbert - Savoy Operas - Princess Ida 7.jpg, "Though I am but a girl, / Defiance thus I hurl." File:William Russell Flint - W. S. Gilbert - Savoy Operas - Princess Ida 8.jpg, "Where are your rifles, pray?"

References

*Postle, Martin, and William Vaughan. 1999. ''The artist's model from Etty to Spencer''. London: Merrell Holberton.

External links

* *
William Russell Flint biography

* ttp://www.visualhaggard.org/illustrators/28 Profile on Visual Haggard* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flint, William Russell 1880 births 1969 deaths 20th-century Scottish painters Alumni of the Heatherley School of Fine Art Artists from Edinburgh Members of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters People educated at Stewart's Melville College Royal Academicians Scottish male painters Scottish watercolourists 20th-century Scottish male artists