Description

California Artist William H WILKE Original Bookplate Scrapbook Album Unique 1 of a Kind Epemera Archive Album

California Artist William H WILKE Original Bookplate Scrapbook Album Unique 1 of a Kind Epemera Archive Album
Original Book Plate designs, printed book illustrations, and related studio archive ephemera from the Estate of William Hancock Wilke.

William Hancock Wilke (American, 1879-1958): Plein air impressionist painter and WPA modernist was also an important San Francisco based illustrator, who distinguished himself by illustrating books such as Ben Franklin and Brigham Young and designed private and small press book plates for prominent American industrialist philanthropists, authors, educators and men and women of letters including Mark Twain, William Randolph Hearst, William Clarkson Van Antwerp, Herbert Brenon, Anne Ackerman and many others.

The bound collection consists of approximately 25 individual book plates, 6 Prints, 4 original drawings and additional prints of a variety of media prints comprised of three original etchings and three period off-set prints.

This treasure trove is an intimate glimpse into the working process and creative mind of an important American illustrator as well as an indispensible historical record to the bibliophile file and antiquarian book collector and a historical record of a greater San Francisco, California societal and literary figure seldom scene, let alone to appear on the market at any price level.

Included in this 24 page tome is a virtual chronicle of the artists career ranging from his earliest Beaux Arts, Belle Epoch and Edwardian designs onto original depression and World War II era Modernist panorama.

The cover of the album is affixed with a sepia tone print of American humorist Will Rogers.
Album cover measures approximately 14 inches high by 10 inches wide with an open spread of 20 inches.

The scrapbook is comprised of 4 principle sections;
Original drawings
Prints
Hand drawn embellishments
Printed book plates

The album itself is a publication mock-up or mechanical drawing of a WWII war effort industrial shipping contracting commemoration of the launching of the Hellsprite War Freighter.
The inside cover of the book, layout is a 2 page maritime modernist composition featuring the Hellsprite.

The next several pages have hand inked lines (layout) indicating placement of future text punctuated by illuminated letters and patriotic eagle cartouches including a dry dock launching scene with a second original center fold out panorama of a shipyard welding scene with figures.

The second half of the album is unlined and Wilke took the opportunity to build a scrapbook of his commissioned Book Plates as well as a folio for a variety of etchings and other works of art.

List of commissioned Book Plates:
Bonar Russell
Richard & Sandra Newmeyer (William Wilke Del. In print)
Dion Robert Tucker
Dominican College
John Francis Neylan (William Wilke Des. In print)
Aurelia Henry Reinhardt
William Clarkson Van Antwerp (2 different bookplates)
Noel Sullivan (pencil signed William Wilke)
Herbert Brenon (William Wilke Des.) (in 2 different sizes)
Charles R. Blyth (pencil signed William Wilke)
William Randolph Hearst (in 3 different sizes) (William Wilke Del. In print)
HJN (pencil signed Will Wilke)
Ira Clark
Anne Ackerman
(some of which are cropped on paper backing)

List of portraits:
Brigham Young (off-set print of engraving signed in print lower right)
Mark Twain (plate pressed engraving signed in print)
Pianist engraving (signed in print with name Johanssen lower right)
Benjamin Franklin (signed drawing)
Woodcut after Plato
Etching after Rembrandt (signed in print)
As well as a cut and paste engraving of a Stradivarius violin within a penciled placard with mock-up lettering as a lay out for a book plate design.

Provenance: Acquired directly from the Wilke family.

Bio: William Hancock Wilke, largely a self-taught artist, studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute under Arthur Mathews and later received a scholarship to study in Paris under Jean Paul Laurens. He is remembered as an artist whose etchings, paintings, drawings, land and seascapes depicted various aspects of California life.
Member of the California Society of Miniature Painters; San Francisco Art Association; California; Society of Etchers.

Condition

Condition: This is in as discovered estate condition. Most of the items have been laid or glued down with adhesive as is typical with the scrapbooks of the period. Items have various foxing and browning and scattered surface imperfections commensurate with age and in a number of works, adhesive has bled through to the front. In our opinion the various aging and conservation issues do not serve to dampen the tremendous historic and nostalgic impact of this album.