Albert Rutherston (1881 - 1953)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

British artist. He painted figures and landscape, illustrated books and designed posters and stage sets. Rutherston started as a realist painter but changed to a more decorative style around 1910, the year of his first one-man exhibition at the Carfax Gallery, London.

He served in the army in Palestine between 1916 and 1919. He wrote the book “Decoration in the Art of the Theatre” (1919), and edited the Contemporary British Artists series, published by Ernest Benn, between 1923 and 1927. In 1927 Rutherston illustrated the Thomas Hardy book “Yuletide In A Younger World,” and designed posters and tickets for the London Underground. He also designed stage sets for Harley Granville-Barker’s productions. He held the post of Ruskin Master of Drawing in Oxford from 1929 to 1948.