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Lewis Baumer
Lewis Baumer was born on 8 August 1870 in St John's Wood, London. In 1887 he studied under A. A. Calderon at St John's Wood Art School, where fellow students included John Byam Shaw and Rex Vicat Cole. He then proceeded to the RA Schools and the RCA, and in 1893 began contributing illustrations to Pall Mall Magazine. Baumer later drew cartoons and illustrations for Bystander, Cassell's, Graphic (Christmas Numbers), Humorist, Idler, Illustrated Bits, London Magazine, London Opinion, Minster, New Budget, Pall Mall Budget, Pears' Annual, Pearson's, Pick-Me-Up, Printers' Pie, Queen, Royal, New Budget, St James's Budget, Sketch, Strand, To-Day, Unicorn and Tatler - where "the Baumer girl" became a noted feature.
Baumer's first published cartoon appeared in Punch in 1897, and he remained with the magazine for fifty years - a record equalled only by Tenniel, Stampa and Shepard. His Punch cartoons deal with genteel scenes, tea dances and tennis parties in the tradition of Du Maurier. Baumer drew posters for Cassell's Magazine and OK Sauce - "Saucy but quite OK" - as well as advertisements for Erasmic Soap, Abdullah Cigarettes, and Kodak. He designed pottery for Eagle Transfer Co and John Sayer, and some of his Punch cartoons were reproduced as postcards by Raphael Tuck in their 'Good Jokes from Punch' series. In August 1912 he stood in for Haselden on the Daily Mirror.
Baumer worked in oils, watercolour, pen and ink, was an accomplished etcher, and in later life concentrated on painting and drawing portraits, especially of children. For his Punch work he sketched first on cartridge paper then pinned thin, semi-transparent smooth-surfaced handmade "studio paper" over this and worked with a Gillott No. 291 mapping pen and Higgins Waterproof Indian Ink: "I never work on card; I like the feel of paper; I like to be able to hold it to the light and see my drawing reversed (a wonderful way to discover faults in drawing)."
A member of the Langham Sketching Club, Arts Club and Chelsea Arts Club, Baumer was elected RI in 1921. He died on 25 October 1963.
- Artist, June 1935.
- Mark Bryant Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2000), pp.14, 16.
Holdings
Description
8 originals [LB0001 - 0008]
Date
10s (20/8/12)
