Sunday 9 January 2011

atchison, topeka and the santa fe

My mother gave H and I a fantastic Atchison Fox print, for which we’ve found the perfect spot on the wall though we have not hung it yet because of the Sunday proscriptions against work here—or at least polluting the neighbours’ conscience and that accounts a little for the wonky snap-shot. This scene was always famous to me growing up with it in the house, and while one can easily find information on illustrators and graphic artists who were contemporaries of Fox, like Maxfield Parrish, Audrey Beardsley and Alphons Mucha, there’s very little to be found on the internet for him—at least not what’s fast-tracked and in the forefront.
A picture like this, of course, can be appreciated without knowing its context, and should be enjoyed regardless, but I am wondering what is relegated to oblivion, never to be rediscovered, when it cannot be easily researched and sought out.   UPDATE: I suppose getting the name right would facilitate matters, and R. Atkinson Fox’s Dawn is a bit better known than the undiscovered Atchison.