John Hassall Biography

John Hassall RI (1868-1948) was an English illustrator known for his advertisements and poster designs.

He was born in Walmer, Kent on 21 May 1868, the eldest son of Lieutenant Christopher Clark Hassall R. N., of a Cheshire family of wine-merchants, and his wife, Louisa, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Butterworth Owen, incumbent of St. Jude's, Chelsea. 

Hassall was educated in Worthing, at Newton Abbot College, and at Neuenheim College, Heidelberg. After twice failing entry to The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he emigrated to Manitoba in Canada in 1888 to begin farming with his brother Owen. He returned to London two years later when he had drawings accepted by The Graphic. At the suggestion of Dudley Hardy (along with Cecil Aldin, a lifelong friend), Hassall studied art in Antwerp under Charles Van Havermaet and Paris. During this time he was influenced by the famous poster artist Alphonse Mucha.

In 1895 Hassall began work as an advertising artist for David Allen & Sons, a career which lasted fifty years and included such well-known projects as the poster "Skegness Is so Bracing" (1908). Between 1896 and 1899 alone, he produced over 600 theatre poster designs for this firm while, at the same time, providing illustrations to several illustrated newspapers. Making use of flat colours enclosed by thick black lines, his poster style was very suitable for children's books, and he produced many volumes of nursery rhymes and fairy stories, such as Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes (1909).

In 1900 Hassall opened his own New Art School and School of Poster Design in Kensington where he saw Annie Fish, Bert Thomas, Bruce Bairnsfather, H. M. Bateman and Harry Rountree among his students. The school was closed at the outbreak of the First World War. In the post-war period, he ran the very successful John Hassall Correspondence School.