Percy Bradshaw

He also wrote articles on drawing, appearing in the Daily Graphic and in The Boy's Own Paper, where his series Black and White Drawing as a Profession was so successful that he decided to create his own art correspondence course, the Press Art School, in 1905. He remained principal of the school for more than 50 years, first from his home, later from Tudor Hall in Forest Hill, London. The school was quite well regarded. Not the least of the advantages that Bradshaw's school offered was that Bradshaw not only offered training, but also introduced the work of his pupils to those editors he considered most likely to use of the sketches. Thus Bradshaw helped Leo Cheyney to sell drawings to The Boys' Own Paper, Bystander and other publications. Bradshaw though that the outbreak of the First World War doomed his school, but clever advertising turned the War to his advantage, swelling the ranks of his students. He enrolled over 1,100 new pupils by the end of 1914, over 1,500 in 1915, and averaged over 3,000 enrollments a year for the 1916–1918. By 1918 he had 22 full-time assistants and the GPO needed a special van to deliver his mail. Bradshaw once remarked that The only difficulty I had was keeping going between wars.

As with The Art of the Illustrator most of Bradshaw's other writing was either didactic, helping art students to learn new techniques and so on, or biographic, such as his Nice People to Know or the history of the Savage Club. Books and similar publications by Bradshaw • No. — Year — Title — Other authors/Illustrators — Publisher — Pages — Notes • 1 — 1913 — Art training by nature's methods: preparatory course of instruction — Press Art School, London — 24 p., ill., 29 cm • 2 — 1919 — Advanced Course of Instruction — Press Art School, London • 3 — 1925 — Art in advertising: a study of British and American pictorial publicity — Press Art School, London — xvi, 496 p., ill. (part col.), 32 x 25 cm. • 4 — 1929 — Water Colour Painting — Press Art School, London — 6 parts, (4º) • 5 — 1936 — Fashion Drawing & Designing. [By various authors.] — Julia Cairns, Grace Cox Ife, Florence E. Ricketts — Press Art School, London — 6 parts, (4º) • 6 — 1941 — I wish I could draw: a system of art teaching by natural methods — The Studio, London — 96 p: ill. (part mounted) diagrs, 26 cm. • 7 — 1942 — They make us smile — Chapman & Hall ltd, London — 112 p: ill, 19 cm. • 8 — 1943 — Marching On — Bert Thomas — W. H. Allen & Co, London — 127 p., (8º) • 9 — 1943 — Drawn from memory: adventures in the arts — Chapman & Hall, London — vii, 255, 1 p., 24 pl., ill., 22 cm. • 10 — 1944 — Nice People to know. — Chapman & Hall, London — xi, 201 p., (8º) • 11 — 1945 — I Wish I Could Paint — Ernest W. Haslehust — The Studio, London — 96 p., (4º) • 12 — 1946 — Line of Laughter — W. H. Allen & Co, London — 140 p., (8º) • 13 — 1946 — Seen in perspective, 1895–1945: a panorama of fifty years — Chapman & Hall ltd, London — 219 p., ill., 23 cm. • 14 — 1949 — The magic of line: a study of drawing through the ages — Studio Publications, London — 112 p., ill., 26 cm. • 15 — 1949 — Come Sketching — Sir Frank Brangwyn, Sir W. Russell Flint, Sydney R. Jones, Francis Marshall, Bertram Nichols, Fred Taylor, Charles Tunnicliffe, and Norman Wilkinson — Studio Publications, London — 96 p., (4º) • 16 — 1952 — Water-colour: a truly English art — Studio Publications, London — 127 p., ill., 30 cm. • 17 — 1956 — Sketching & Painting indoors. [With illustrations.] — Rowland Hilder — Studio Publications, London — 96 p., (8º) • 18 — 1958 — Brother savages and guests': a history of the Savage Club 1857-1957 — W.H. Allen, London — xiii, 162 p., 10 pl., 26 cm.

The Art of the Illustrator was probably Bradshaw's most important work. It consisted of a series of portfolios based on twenty leading illustrators. Bradshaw commissioned each of them for a special illustration. Each artist was free to choose the subject, so long as the illustration was representative of the artist's normal technique and that five preliminary stages in its composition should be shown. It is not absolutely clear when the portfolios were published. The Jisc catalogue shows them being issued from 1900 to 1920. However, notices from the press show them as just issued in June 1917.. The Graphic noted that twelve of the portfolios had already been published by mid-June 1917. Therefore, the dates should probably be 1917–1918. Some of the illustrations are dated 1915 and one may even be dated 1914. This makes sense as some illustrators were bound to take longer to complete their commissions and it took Bradshaw, who was dealing with a huge surge in enrolments, time to write the descriptions. The portfolios were not cheap, for what they were: a set of six plates and less than thirty pages of text. A review in The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors in August 1918 gives the cost of the set of twenty portfolios as £7. 7s. (seven guineas) or £8. 8s. (eight guineas) if purchased in monthly instalments. A single portfolio on its own cost 10s 6d. (half a guinea). Each of the twenty portfolios dealt with the personality and working methods of a leading illustrator with: • a biography of the illustrator • an illustration or photograph of the illustrator at work in their studio • an explanation by the illustrator describing what they have done in each stage of the preparation of the illustration • a plate showing an illustration typical of their work • five other plates showing the work at five earlier stages of its production, from the first pencil rough to the just before the finished drawing or colour sketch. Six of the illustrators worked in watercolour, five in pen and ink, two in wash-painting, and one in body-colour. The subjects of the portfolios, and they were: • Henry Mayo Bateman (1887–1970) • Charles Edmund Brock (1870–1938) • Cyrus Cuneo (1879–1916) • William Russell Flint (1880–1969) • Dudley Hardy (1867–1922) • William Hatherell (1855–1928) • Fortunino Matania (1881–1963) • J. Bernard Partridge (1861–1945) • Gerald Spencer Pryse (1882–1956) • Warwick Reynolds {1880–1926) • Frank Reynolds (artist) (1876–1953) • W. Heath Robinson (1872–1944) • Harry Rountree (1878–1950)Harry Rountree: Harry Rountree and His Work: The Art of the Illustrator (Limited Edition Prints) • Claude Allin Shepperson (1867–1921) • E. J. Sullivan (1869–1933) • Balliol Salmon (1868–1953) • Bert Thomas (1883–1966) • Frederick Henry Townsend (1868–1920) • Louise Wright (illustrator) (active: London 1910) • Lawson Wood (1878–1957)

Faculty (consulting staff) of the Press Art School included • Fred Pegram • W. Heath Robinson • Harry Rountree • Bert Thomas