Sidney Sime: Master of the Mysterious

by Simon Heneage, Henry Ford, Sidney Sime (Illustrator)

Sidney Sime (1867-1941) was an artist whose best work was comparable to that of Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham and Kay Nielsen. His mysterious and fantastic illustrations were published in the well-known weekly and monthly magazines of the turn of the century such as 'the "Strand', "Pall Mall,' and the 'Idler,' and were considered sensational at the time. He was also a graphic humorist, theater designer and book illustrator whose long and harmonious collaboration with Lord Dunsany, the Irish story-teller and playwright, was uniquely creative.

Sime had a meteoric career...he rose from pit-boy to artist in the space of a few years...and made his name in London largely as an illustrator though he was also a painter of distinction. Among his friends and colleagues were Augustus John, Max Beerbohm and Frank Harris. In the latter part of his life, however, he disappeared from public view, becoming a recluse in his country house in Surrey.

Genres: Art, Fantasy

96 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1980

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

wondrous and bizarre art works

[Alex Sarll]

One of the great British illustrators of the fantastical – and two in the case of my copy, acquired from the sale of Kevin O'Neill's estate. Sime is best-known, in so far as he's known at all, for his illustrations of Lord Dunsany's fiction, which quite rightly make up the bulk of this, vast mountains and enigmatic forests, rum villages and impossible citadels, with tiny figures creeping through them or else vast pantheons looming above. Rackham would be the obvious comparison, a similar magic woven deep, though I also see Bocklin, Gustave Moreau, once or twice an impossible collaboration between Blake and Beardsley. And as the brief biography here makes clear, Sime had come up through the same scene of which Beardsley was part, the fin de siecle magazines, contributing cartoons and theatrical caricatures, working for Punch, Tatler, the Illustrated London News, and even for a time owning the Idler (it did not go well). Stranger still, he was born in Hulme and his first job was as a pit-boy in a colliery; maybe it's that social mobility, practically unthinkable now, which went some way to inspiring the fairytale dynamics and stark contrasts in his art.

[Paul Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Thames and Hudson] (1980). SB. 96 Pages. Purchased from theidlegenius.

A4 Format. Indexed. 84 b&w illustrations; many full-page. A few of the smaller images suffer from being scaled back.

The best works are atmospheric, strange, unsettling, dark, innovative, enigmatic, amusing, idiosyncratic, surreal, haunting… a superb draftsman with a most distinctive gift…

An excellent Biographical Overview is provided along with a Bibliography.

David Low (1947): “…S. H. Sime, a beautifully imaginative artist, with a mordant fancy…” (p. 11.)

It’s noted that Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) actually, on occasion, built his writing around the pictures, “…completely revers(ing) the normal order of things…” (p. 24.)

The authors rightly lament the modest extent of his collaboration with the great Arthur Machen (1863-1947). (p. 25.)

Sadly, it’s recorded that - after the 1927 exhibition - the artist’s (1865-1941): “…withdrawal from the world became virtually complete…” (p. 28.)