Last night I came upon a fascinating website JF Ptak Science Books "A Daily History of Holes, Dots, Lines, Science, History, Math, the
Unintentional Absurd & Nothing 11.6 million words, 7000 images". I learned of a fascinating artist I had never heard of, G.H. Davis from Great Britain. If you know me at all, you know I love "obsessiveness" in drawing and painting and this guys "exploded" and cut-away illustrations are awesome. Remember newspapers were the only source of information for most people on a daily basis so these drawings must have really helped people understand what was going on.
The Illustrated First World War website supplied this short bio.
George Horace Davis was born on 8 May 1881 in Kensington, London, and
educated at Kensington Park College and Ealing School of Art.
He worked as a freelance artist and during the First World War served with distinction with the Royal Flying Corps (later the Royal Air Force), using his experience to create portrayals of aerial combat, a number of which were published in The Sphere.
He is best known as a “special artist” for The Illustrated London News
for whom he began to work in 1923. His first drawing, a visual
explanation of the use of wireless in small boats, reflected his
speciality, which was in creating diagrammatic drawings that educated
and informed readers of advances in science, technology, transport and
warfare.
Aside from this, he created fascinating cutaway drawings of buildings such as 10 Downing Street, the Savoy Hotel, Westminster Abbey and even the new reptile house at London Zoo. The scope and detail of his work is utterly without peer.
It is estimated that in the 40 years he worked at ILN, his
full-page and double-page illustrations occupied around 2,500 pages of
the paper, each one painstakingly researched and requiring an informed
understanding of his subject, whether it was a V2 rocket during the
Second World War, or the interior of the Queen Mary ocean liner.
George Davis continued to work into his eighties. At the time of his death in late 1963, the ILN had a number of his recently completed drawings in the office, awaiting publication.
The Illustrated First World War website supplied this short bio.
He worked as a freelance artist and during the First World War served with distinction with the Royal Flying Corps (later the Royal Air Force), using his experience to create portrayals of aerial combat, a number of which were published in The Sphere.
He is best known as a “special artist” for The Illustrated London News
for whom he began to work in 1923. His first drawing, a visual
explanation of the use of wireless in small boats, reflected his
speciality, which was in creating diagrammatic drawings that educated
and informed readers of advances in science, technology, transport and
warfare.Aside from this, he created fascinating cutaway drawings of buildings such as 10 Downing Street, the Savoy Hotel, Westminster Abbey and even the new reptile house at London Zoo. The scope and detail of his work is utterly without peer.
It is estimated that in the 40 years he worked at ILN, his
full-page and double-page illustrations occupied around 2,500 pages of
the paper, each one painstakingly researched and requiring an informed
understanding of his subject, whether it was a V2 rocket during the
Second World War, or the interior of the Queen Mary ocean liner.George Davis continued to work into his eighties. At the time of his death in late 1963, the ILN had a number of his recently completed drawings in the office, awaiting publication.
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