Phil May 1864-1903

Phil May 1864-1903 was a caricaturist, born Philip William May.

His father died when he was nine years old and the family lived in dire poverty. Still in his teens he went to London, sleeping rough until he got work with a theatrical costumier and drawing posters and cartoons. He emigrated to Australia in 1886 where he worked for The Bulletin edited by J.F. Archibald, for which he made hundreds of his best drawings. In 1889 he moved to Rome and later Paris, returning to London in 1892.

He was a founder member of The London Sketch Club, which was founded on 1 April 1898 as a social club for artists working in the field of commercial graphic art, mainly for newspapers and periodicals and book illustration (1). His fellow founder members were Dudley Hardy, Walter Fowler, Lance Thackeray, Cecil Aldin, W Sanders Fiske, Walter Churcher, Tom Browne, and its first president George Charles Haité.

The sympathetic studies of Londoners by Phil May quickly made him famous, his wit and humour matching his artistic ability. His work included excellent political portraits, and in his later years he drew exclusively for Punch and The Graphic. Books of his work were published as annuals and other collections from 1895. Because of his harsh earliest years, he suffered debilitating illness, and died all too young aged only 39 in 1903.

Nat Gould would have met him in the 1880s when both in were working Sydney.

Phil May designed many covers for the now highly collectible “yellowback” books. Nat Gould had a particular liking for them, insisting on being published in that format (among others) even after it had been abandoned by most writers and publishers. He wrote of the success that Phil May was then enjoying in letters written in 1895 and 1897 to E.J. Brady.

Reference

(1) The Pall Mall Gazette 2 April 1898.