Heath Robinson, William - Aero Bathing Plane - illustration - art postcard

Art Postcard
• Work of art title: The Aero Bathing Plane
• Artist (if known): William Heath Robinson (1872-1944)
• Media or other details:  illustration
• Publisher / Gallery: Athena International
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp & postmark details (if relevant): n/a
• Size: modern
• Notes & condition details:

NOTES:

Size: 'Modern' is usually around 6in x 4in / 'Old Standard' is usually around 5 1/2in x 3 1/2in. Larger sizes mentioned, but if you need to know the exact size please ask.

All postcards are not totally new and are pre-owned. It's inevitable that older cards may show signs of ageing and use, particularly sent through the post. Any faults other than normal ageing are noted.

Stock No.: A530

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NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information:

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William Heath Robinson (31 May 1872 – 13 September 1944) was an English cartoonist and illustrator best known for drawings of ridiculously complicated machines for achieving simple objectives.^[1]

In the U.K., the term ""Heath Robinson"" entered the language during the 1914–1918 First World War as a description of any unnecessarily complex and implausible contrivance, much as ""Rube Goldberg machines"" came to be used in the U.S. from the 1930s onwards as a term for similar efforts. ""Heath Robinson contraption"" is perhaps more often used in relation to temporary fixes using ingenuity and whatever is to hand, often string and tape, or unlikely cannibalisations. Its continuing popularity was undoubtedly linked to Second World War Britain's shortages and the need to ""make do and mend"".

William Heath Robinson was born at 25 Ennis Road on 31 May 1872 into a family of artists in an area of London known as Stroud Green, Finsbury Park, north London. His father Thomas Robinson (1838-1902) and brothers Thomas Heath Robinson (1869-1954) and Charles Robinson (1870–1937) all worked as illustrators.

His early career involved illustrating books – among others: Hans Christian Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales and Legends (1897), The Arabian Nights (1899), Tales from Shakespeare (1902), Gargantua and Pantagruel (1904),^[2] Twelfth Night (1908), Andersen's Fairy Tales (1913), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1914), Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (1915) and Walter de la Mare's Peacock Pie (1916).

In the course of his work Heath Robinson also wrote and illustrated three children's books, The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902), Bill the Minder (1912) and Peter Quip in Search of a Friend (1922). Uncle Lubin is regarded as the start of his career in the depiction of unlikely machines.

During the First World War, he drew large numbers of cartoons, depicting ever-more-unlikely secret weapons being used by the combatants. He also depicted the American Expeditionary Force in France.^[3]

He also produced a steady stream of humorous drawings for magazines and advertisements. In 1934 he published a collection of his favourites as Absurdities, such as:

• ""The Wart Chair. A simple apparatus for removing a wart from the top of the head""
• ""Resuscitating stale railway scones for redistribution at the station buffets""
• ""The multimovement tabby silencer"", which automatically threw water at serenading cats

Most of his cartoons have since been reprinted many times in multiple collections.

The machines he drew were frequently powered by steam boilers or kettles, heated by candles or a spirit lamp and usually kept running by balding, bespectacled men in overalls. There would be complex pulley arrangements, threaded by lengths of knotted string. Robinson's cartoons were so popular that in Britain the term ""Heath Robinson"" is used to refer to an improbable, rickety machine barely kept going by incessant tinkering. (The corresponding term in the U.S. is Rube Goldberg, after an American cartoonist with an equal devotion to odd machinery. Similar ""inventions"" have been drawn by cartoonists in many countries, with the Danish Storm Petersen being on par with Robinson and Goldberg.)

One of his most famous series of illustrations was that which accompanied the first Professor Branestawm book written by Norman Hunter. The stories told of the eponymous professor who was brilliant, eccentric and forgetful and provided a perfect backdrop for Robinson's drawings.

One of the automatic analysis machines built for Bletchley Park during the Second World War to assist in the decryption of German message traffic was named ""Heath Robinson"" in his honour. It was a direct predecessor to the Colossus, the world's first programmable digital electronic computer.

In 1903 he married Josephine Latey, the daughter of newspaper editor John Latey.^[4] Heath Robinson moved to Pinner, Middlesex, in 1908. His house in Moss Lane is commemorated by a blue plaque. West House, in Memorial Park, Pinner, has been restored to house a Heath Robinson Collection, with an extension to the house planned.^[5]

He died in September 1944 during the Second World War and is buried in East Finchley Cemetery.

type=printed postcards

theme=artists signed

sub-theme=art

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted