Biographies

John Hassall (1868 – 1948) He was born in Walmer, Kent in 1868, studied art in Antwerp and Paris Academie Julien) and eventually became a full-time illustrator and became a member of the London Sketch Club, founded in 1898 to provide a social haven for the leading graphic artists of the day. Its early members included Tom Browne, Cecil Aldin, Walter Churcher, , , John Hassall, Phil May, Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Baden-Powell. The club has been described as dividing into a poster group and a fairy group, but Hassall worked both sides of that division, producing memorable illustrations of and one of the most famous posters ever produced. His Jolly Fisherman poster has been circulated hundreds of times in almost every newspaper in the land, and the dancing salt has been imitated by thousands of visitors. John Hassall drew the picture in 1908. It had been commissioned by the Great Northern Railway Company and for this masterpiece he received twelve guineas. The “so bracing” slogan, of almost equal importance, is believed to have been the brainchild of an unknown member of the Railway Staff. Dudley Hardy Edmund Dulac Snow White