Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue
Philip William ('Phil') May (1864-1903), Cartoonist and silhouette artist
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Illustrator; born 22 April 1864, at New Wortley, Leeds. Assistant scene painter at Grand Theatre, Leeds, and illustrator for Yorkshire papers 1870s; in London from c.1883, initially destitute; cartoonist on Sydney Bulletin, Australia 1885–8; Paris 1888–9; major breakthrough with ‘Parson and Painter’ series for St Stephen’s Review 1889 followed by success of Phil May Summer Annual and Winter Annual 1892–1904, and other publications – the process block ideally suited to his drawings; elected to staff of Punch 1895 (‘Punch was long in discovering him, but he found him at last’), followed by productive period before alcoholism took its toll; died of phthisis and cirrhosis of the liver, 5 August 1903, at his home in St John’s Wood, London. [1]
There was no vice in him. He had a touchingly simple and affectionate character, but unfortunately he wasted himself and his means on a crowd of worthless strangers, who settled round his table like flies; while his terrible weakness for drink sapped his will and his physical strength. [2]
Phil May’s appearance in later life:
His distinctive appearance and escapades made him a centre of attention and he was one of the few artists known to ‘the man in the street’. If he went to a music-hall or a boxing match the crowds would give him a cheer and call out joking remarks to ‘Phil’. I remember him with his dark hair brushed in a smooth fringe which came low on his forehead, his suit of loud check, smoking an outsize cigar, his complexion suggesting his well known fondness for the whisky. In his self-portraits which appear in numerous sketches he represents himself as a jovial person – not quite true as there was a strain of melancholy about Phil May. [3]
Carol Blackett-Ord
There was no vice in him. He had a touchingly simple and affectionate character, but unfortunately he wasted himself and his means on a crowd of worthless strangers, who settled round his table like flies; while his terrible weakness for drink sapped his will and his physical strength. [2]
Phil May’s appearance in later life:
His distinctive appearance and escapades made him a centre of attention and he was one of the few artists known to ‘the man in the street’. If he went to a music-hall or a boxing match the crowds would give him a cheer and call out joking remarks to ‘Phil’. I remember him with his dark hair brushed in a smooth fringe which came low on his forehead, his suit of loud check, smoking an outsize cigar, his complexion suggesting his well known fondness for the whisky. In his self-portraits which appear in numerous sketches he represents himself as a jovial person – not quite true as there was a strain of melancholy about Phil May. [3]
Carol Blackett-Ord
Footnotesback to top
1) ‘A child to the end, he was done to death by a shoal of hangers-on, who sent him to his grave before he was forty, broken in health and empty in pocket’; Spielmann 1904, p.35.
2) Rothenstein 1931–2, p.58.
3) Brown 1968, p.12.
Referencesback to top
Beerbohm 1958Beerbohm, M., Max’s Nineties: Drawings 1892–1899, London, 1958.
Bills & Webb 2007
Bills, M., and D. Webb, eds, Victorian Artists in Photographs: [The World of G.F. Watts]. Selections from the Rob Dickins Collection, exh. cat., Watts Gallery, Compton, 2007.
Bradshaw 1958
Bradshaw, P.V., Brother Savages and Guests, London, 1958.
Brown 1968
Brown, O., Exhibition: The Memoirs of Oliver Brown, London, 1968.
Coke 1913
Coke, D., The Art of Silhouette, London, 1913.
Cuppleditch 1978
Cuppleditch, D., The London Sketch Club, London, 1978.
Cuppleditch 1981
Cuppleditch, D., Phil May: The Artist and His Wit, London, 1981.
Dakers 1999
Dakers, C., The Holland Park Circle: Artists and Victorian Society, New Haven and London, 1999.
Hart-Davis 1972
Hart-Davis, R., A Catalogue of the Caricatures of Max Beerbohm, London, 1972.
Houfe 1996
Houfe, S., The Dictionary of 19th-Century British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1996 (rev. ed. of Houfe 1978).
Houfe 2002
Houfe, S., Phil May: His Life and Work 1864–1903, Aldershot, 2002.
Houfe 2004b
Houfe, S., ‘May, Philip William (1864–1903)’, ODNB, Oxford, online ed., September 2004.
Jackson 1911
Jackson, E.N., The History of Silhouettes, London, 1911.
Lane & Browne 1906
Lane, W.C., and N.E. Browne, eds, A.L.A. [American Library Association] Portrait Index, Washington, DC, 1906.
Lavery 1940
Lavery, J., The Life of a Painter, London, 1940.
Lucas 1912
Lucas, E.V., ‘May, Philip William, called Phil May (1864–1903)’, DNB, London, 1912.
Maas 1984
Maas, J., The Victorian Art World in Photographs, London, 1984.
May [1904]
May, P., The Phil May Folio of Caricature Drawings and Sketches, London, [1904].
Mayne 1970
Mayne, A., British Profile Miniaturists, London, 1970.
Morrison 1906
Morrison, A., ‘Phil May: Illustrated by Some Unpublished Sketches’, Strand Magazine, 1906, pp.674–80.
Reed 1898
Reed, E.T., Mr Punch's Animal Land, London, 1898.
Rothenstein 1931–2
Rothenstein, W., Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein, 2 vols, London, 1931–2.
Snoddy 1996
Snoddy, T., Dictionary of Irish Artists: 20th Century, Dublin, 1996.
Spielmann 1894
Spielmann, M.H., ‘Our Graphic Humorists: Phil May’, Magazine of Art, 1894, pp.348–53.
Spielmann 1895a
Spielmann, M.H., The History of Punch, London, 1895.
Stetz 2007
Stetz, M.D., Facing the Late Victorians: Portraits of Writers and Artists from the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, Newark, DE, 2007.
Sullivan 1922
Sullivan, E.J., The Art of Illustration, London, 1922.
Thorpe 1932
Thorpe, J.H., Phil May: Master-draughtsman & Humorist, 1864–1903, London, 1932.
Thorpe 1948
Thorpe, J., Phil May, London, 1948.
Who Was Who 1967
Who Was Who, vol.3, A Companion to Who’s Who Containing the Biographies of Those Who Died During the Period 1929–40, 2nd ed., London, 1967.