■^' m % Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/farthurjacobsonhOOjacorich NE has but to glance at the great number of artists in and around New York to have forced upon him the conviction that among many it must take a very food man to make his way in > No doubt there are a good many young artists there who find it almost if not quite as hard to dispose of their wares as do the literary element, but working on the basis that true merit will find its own reward in the long run is a tenet that keeps them at their draw- ing boards waiting for an opportunity to show what they can do. Book-plate artists, or more properly speaking, those who have designed a few plates, are many in New York, perhaps more so than in any other section of our country, and the work of Mr. Ja- cobson will I think be somewhat new to a great nwmbcf of oat collectors, who will no douht he much surprised and pleased by the cleverness of the designs shown herewith* Mr* Jacobson be- longs to the host of magazine designers and illus- trators, and yet differs from many of them in that his work is distinctive, pleasing and original Just what it is in his drawings that appeals to one so strongly is perhaps hard to determine, but it seems to me that it is their daintiness, and withal their quiet strength* There is in some of the plates too a certain humor, never descend- ing to the grotesque, that is one of the principle charms of his work, but most of them are dainty and pretty designs, and it is probable that the latter style will characterize most of his produc- tions* The Charles E. Lydecker shows a plate of de- lightful humor, with its black cat, tome candle* It is a plate that grows upon one the more you look at it, the cat with its unblinking eyes hav- ing a strong attraction* Another design also in the humorous vein is that of Emily Clark Poor, colonial in style, and it has a black cat rub- bing contentedly against the man's legs* Frank Aikens Jacobson seems to pose as a lover of the horse, and likewise of books, with which he has filled the back part of his equipage, perhaps this latter fact accounts for the cherubic smile on his face* George "Winf ield Fairchild is evidently a lover of nature and reads along undisturbed by the wind blowing his skirts about* The plate for Kirke La Shelle lid, son of the famous libret- tist, is a very successful design showing the ow- ner perched in a voluminous and comfortable armchair, engaged with one of his tomes, proba- bly a fairy tale* The Jessie E. Struthers would possibly be called Colonial, with a charming bit of landscape in the background, a very pretty plate of the conventional type* The Thomas plate is a pretty design of someone^s front door with an old fashioned knocker and little girl* Thomas Towar Bates if we may believe the de- sign of his plate is obeying the behest of his mid- dle cognomen ''towar*'* Three plates in quite a new style are those f or W P T showing a ram- pant lion, the sign chosen as the mark of my press, the one for J E S, a rose, and that for F A J, a goose on wing* These nicely colored by hand make a very brilliant showing* The design for Alan Franklin Gilham seems to be rather on the picaresque order, and is very attractive* Kate Everett Jacobson's is Colonial in style, a very dainty, pretty plate* It suffers perhaps from be- ing in half tone, but was probably reproduced by this method as giving a softer, smoother effect than the line plate, the photogravure would con- vey the spirit of the drawing m«ch better^ One of the most successful of Jacobson's plates is that for Jay Vivian Chambers* A daintier, more ap- propriate plate for a child could scarce be con- ceived* The little fellow is riding his hobby horse, and perusing his book with diligence, and as a fact, I believe he has a strong predilection for books with nice pictures, preferably in color* Very few book-plates of these times carry the owner's name and address for the reason pos- sibly, as the late Gleeson White advanced, that although it is a very good custom and would give the borrower of a book all possible details as to where to return the volume, it would at the sametime let loose upon one the hordes of book-plate collectors all over the world and he would be continually besieged by requests for his plate* However this may be it does not seem to have counted for much with Mr* Jacob- son who in his own plate has boldly added his address* Uacol^so lydcckerM ONE ^^ ras ^A ^^^^>^ ^^^^^^^^^^^m HI %. This hb booh. "IB^TDac 2>ate^ ^D1^X i^^^/l/MNCnN^ ' 'ARTHUR. - 0ACOB5ON iiyfred. ar ier TrucsdcU ^'- ^■^^