Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
Robert Ingpen's Classic Illustrations into the 20th Century
Article 12
by Lyn Lacy
1700 words
A great thing happens when you’re blogging and find another blogger who thinks like you. Finding two bloggers like that is even better. And best of all is finding a way from the two blogs to add another thread of interesting tidbits they chose not to explore.
So it is with writing about Alice in Wonderland and finding that another blogger had already offered a great deal. The first blog I refer you to is a May 4, 2020, post on “Lit Hub”––“20 Artists’ Visions of Alice in Wonderland from the Last 155 Years: Curiouser and Curiouser!,” by the blog’s managing editor Emily Temple: “It was 155 years ago today, on May 4th, 1865, when Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole. Carroll chose the day because it was Alice Liddell’s birthday (in 1865, she turned 13). Since then, Alice and her compatriots have been reimagined countless times, and inspired creative work of just about every genre. These days, it feels like we’re all down one rabbit hole or another, so it seemed just as good a time as any to revisit some of the best artistic treatments Alice and the gang have gotten over the years, from the classic Tenniel illustrations to moody drawings by Mervyn Peake (yes, that Mervyn Peake) to creations filtered by Yayoi Kusama’s bright, bubbly brain. Down you go.”
After Tenniel’s iconic illustrations, other artists were highlighted by Temple on her blog, along with an example of their work and “Read more” links for further information about each one who had illustrated Alice in Wonderland and/or Through the Looking-Glass:
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, (originals), 1864
Sir John Tenniel, (1st published edition), 1865
Blanche McManus, (1st American edition), 1899
Peter Newell, 1901
Arthur Rackham, 1905
Bessie Pease Gutmann, 1907
Max Ernst, (Alice in 1941), 1941
Mervyn Peake, 1946
Leonard Weisgard, 1949
Tove Jansson, 1966
Ralph Steadman, 1967
Salvador Dalí, 1969
Peter Blake (screenprints), 1970
Kuniyoshi Kaneko, 1974
Barry Moser, 1982
Nick Hewetson, 1995
Lisbeth Zwerger, 1999
John Vernon Lord, 2009
Yayoi Kusama, 2012
Anthony Browne, 2015
“Children’s Classics Revisited” in Article 9 (2021 January) “19th Century Golden Ages of Illustration” posed my hypothesis in which Tenniel’s illustrations in 1865 for Alice were the catalyst for the explosion of dramatic changes in illustrations for children at the same time in England and the U.S.
Hundreds of other artists internationally have illustrated one or both of Carroll’s stories about young Alice. In my opinion, one illustrator in particular should have been on Temple’s list above—Robert Ingpen (1936-).
2009 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2015 Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
Ingpen is a world-renowned Australian graphic designer, illustrator and writer who was born in Geelong and now lives and works in Barwon Heads. In 1968 he began his long career as a freelance illustrator and storyteller, publishing well over 100 books on Australian life, history, conservation and stories for children. In 1986 he was the only Australian to have received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his lasting contribution. For the 50th anniversary of the award, Ingpen had a dozen illustrations on display in an exhibition that went on a world tour. He has been awarded the Order of Australia membership and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Children’s Book Council of Australia n 2016.
Given my interest in Ingpen’s extraordinary illustrations, I sought out another blogger with similar good taste—Natalia Bragaru, who blogs as “Kids book Explorer.” Her post is “Illustrating Alice”: an anthology of Alice’s all-time greatest hits”: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking-Glass” illustrated by the Australian master Robert Ingpen. are of the highest quality, with unabridged texts and superb illustrations. They are two of the ‘must-haves’ for any growing reader in a classic library of the best 16 literary masterpieces brilliantly and prolifically (with over 70 illustrations per title) illustrated by Ingpen.”
A second “Kids book Explorer” post by Bragaru is “Robert Ingpen: a rebel against mediocrity”: “His friend Michael Page, a South Australian author who collaborated on a few books, regards him as “…one of those rare figures on the modern artistic scene: a man with complete control of pure line and pure colour. He desires only to learn how to use them better, without diverting into impressionism or any other technique, which may camouflage an artist’s true ability.” Ingpen, however, refuses to call himself an “artist”, preferring the term “illustrator”…Page recalls a conversation with Robert about the conventional perception of an artist as “a rebel against conformity”; a perception, which Ingpen’s ordered life and representational artistic style grounded in studies of classical drawing, didn’t quite fit. To this Ingpen is said to have replied: “But I am a rebel. A rebel against mediocrity” (Angela Ingpen and Michael Page, 1980, Robert Ingpen, Macmillan).
My own blog has featured books illustrated by Ingpen in Article 1 (2021 June) “The Wizard of Oz” (see also below in list of his classics) and in Article 2 (2021 July) “The Night Before Christmas.”
2010 The Night Before Christmas (1823) by Clement C. Moore. Illustrated by Robert Ingpen. Sterling/Palazzo.
I was also a guest curator for an exhibition of original art for editions of “The Night Before Christmas” at the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, Florida, over the holidays in 2019, and corresponded with Ingpen when his illustrations for the poem were requested for exhibiting.
When the exhibition closed, Ingpen kindly agreed to sell the original of his engaging “Sooty Santa” coming down the chimney, which today hangs in my study above a proof page of fellow Australian Bruce Whatley’s (1954-) rambunctious reindeer from his 1999 edition of the poem.
In addition to the two books about Alice, the other 15 titles Ingpen illustrated (add his The Nutcracker and Aesop’s Fable to the display below) have been issued by Welbeck Publishing Group as “A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classics” edition. In 2021 Welbeck announced the launch of his classics after acquiring Ingpen’s backlist portfolio previously published by Palazzo Editions in 23 language editions across 26 countries. The reader is encouraged to look for these Welbeck covers online because they are Ingpen’s latest editions, but previous Palazzo covers are sometimes shown also because they often pop up online and they feature some examples of the illustrator’s exemplary work.
“This highly acclaimed series of children’s classics is a unique achievement by one illustrator and serves as his magnum opus to the imagination…From riverbanks to the rabbit hole, from a treasure island to the yellow brick road, along the Mississippi to Neverland and to lands far and wide, visit worlds of wonderment that will stay with you forever… Robert Ingpen’s beautiful series of illustrated children’s classics will take you to worlds within worlds, unleash your imagination and let your love of the classics be re-awakened, nurtured and never disappear” (Welbeck Editions, online).
2004 Peter Pan and Wendy (1911) by J. M. Barrie. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2006 The Jungle Book (1894) by Rudyard Kipling. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2010 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) by Mark Twain. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2011 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2012 Around the World in Eighty Days (1872) by Jules Verne. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2013 Just So Stories (1902) by Rudyard Kipling. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2014 The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Carlo Collodi. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2016 The Nutcracker (1844) by E. T. A. Hoffman. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2018 A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2019 The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2019 Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2021 Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2021 Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
2022 Aesop's Fables (n.d.) by Caroline Lawrence. A Robert Ingpen Illustrated Classic. Welbeck Editions
To celebrate Ingpen’s 80th birthday in 2016, Palazzo Editions and The National Library of Australia published Wonderlands – the Illustration Art of Robert Ingpen. Text and Illustrations by Robert Ingpen.
Two of the illustrator’s books have been published by mineditionsUS, established in 2004, formerly part of NorthSouth Books.
2005 The Ugly Duckling (1843) by Hans Christian Andersen. Illustrated by Robert Ingpen. mineditionsUS Classic. The illustrator explained that In 2005, to celebrate Andersen’s 200th birthday, he experimented “with cut-out paper shapes with my normal watercolour.”
2020 The Magic Bookcase. With mural foldout. Written and illustrated by Robert Ingpen. mineditionsUS. Ingpen’s original idea, as explained by him: "IN A PLACE FAR AWAY there is a room with bookcase walls, and there are no books on the shelves. But it is far from empty. Instead of books there are collections of the colorful characters that have appeared on the pages of great storybooks.” Ingpen’s book with foldout is a result of his mural comprised of seven 3’x4’ panels completed in 2018, which was donated by him to the National Library of Australia under the Cultural Arts Program of Australia.
Ingpen has chronicled Australia history, folklore and conservation efforts during his entire career, with such titles as Turning Points in the Making of Australia (1980) with Michael Page and The Voyage of The Poppykettle (1980). The Encyclopaedia of Ideas That Changed the World (1993) with Philip Wilkinson is another example of his remarkable achievements.
Robert Ingpen, Australia’s national treasure.
