31 Facts About Walter Crane

Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator.

Walter Crane is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the later 19th century.

Walter Crane was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and produced an array of paintings, illustrations, children's books, ceramic tiles, wallpapers and other decorative arts.

Walter Crane is remembered for his creation of a number of iconic images associated with the international socialist movement.

Walter Crane's elder brother Thomas would go into illustration, and sister Lucy was a noted writer.

Walter Crane was a fluent follower of the newer art movements and he came to study and appreciate the detailed senses of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and was a diligent student of the renowned artist and critic John Ruskin.

Walter Crane was a student who admired the masters of the Italian Renaissance, however he was more influenced by the Elgin marbles in the British Museum.

Walter Crane did as much as Morris himself to bring art into the daily life of all classes.

Walter Crane devoted much time and energy to non-political societies, such as the Art Workers Guild, of which he was master in 1888 and 1889 and to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, which he helped to found in 1888.

Walter Crane was a Vice President of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union, a movement begun in 1890, whose aim was to promote loose-fitting clothing, in opposition to "stiffness, tightness and weight".

Walter Crane is credited with the design and decoration of the front facade of "The Bomb Shop", Henderson's bookshop at 66 Charing Cross Road specializing in left-wing and radical literature.

Walter Crane was controversial in his support of the four Chicago anarchists executed in 1887 in connection with the Haymarket affair.

Financial support was withdrawn and planned dinners in Walter Crane's honour were cancelled.

Walter Crane publicly criticised the British government for the Second Boer War and joined the Stop the War Committee.

Walter Crane married embroiderer Mary Frances Andrews in 1871 and they proceeded on a two-year honeymoon.

The couple went on to have three children with Walter Crane featuring himself, his wife and one of their sons in his 1885 watercolour, The Apotheosis of Italian Art.

Late in 1914, at the age of 68, Frances Walter Crane went on a rest cure in Kingsnorth, Kent, but committed suicide in a tragic train incident.

Walter Crane died on 14 March 1915 in Horsham Hospital, West Sussex, three months after his wife.

Walter Crane's body was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, where his ashes remain.

Walter Crane was survived by their three children, Beatrice, Lionel and Lancelot.

Walter Crane was allowed more freedom in a series beginning with The Frog Prince which showed markedly the influence of Japanese art, and of a long visit to Italy following on his marriage in 1871.

Walter Crane's work was characterized by sharp outlines and flat tints.

Walter Crane illustrated Nellie Dale's books On Teaching English Reading, Steps to Reading, First Primer, Second Primer, Infant Reader, Book I, and Book II.

Walter Crane wrote and illustrated three books of poetry, Queen Summer, Renascence, and The Sirens Three.

Walter Crane's earliest stained glass window designs were some American commissions with glass made by William Morris.

In 1887, Walter Crane was commissioned by Emilie Barrington to paint a series of murals to decorate the newly constructed Red Cross Hall in Southwark, a project conceived by the housing campaigner Octavia Hill.

Walter Crane produced designs for nine panels, which were displayed at the 1890 Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society show.

Walter Crane was much admired in Hungary and in 1900 Radisics Jeno, the director of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts, organised a retrospective of his work there.

Walter Crane visited the city in the autumn, was feted, gave lectures and visited Transylvania.

Walter Crane went to Kolozsvar, Banffyhunyad, and Kalotaszeg in search of Hungarian traditional art.

Zsuzsa Gonda in her review of Walter Crane's visit says that it is one of the most extensively documented events in the artistic life of the country in that period.