Artist Info
Arthur Watts DSO
Arthur George Watts DSO (1883–1935) was an illustrator and artist. From the age of 17 he was educated at the Slade School of Fine Art, from where he went to the Free Arts Schools in Antwerp and then Paris, Moscow and Madrid. He was reportedly one of the London arts schools crowd who holidayed regularly in St Ives, Cornwall, during the Edwardian period. Watts served in World War I in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, By 1904 he was providing humorous and other illustrations for papers such as the Tatler, The Bystander, Pearson's Magazine and London Opinion. In 1911 Watts was living with his wife of one year and their baby daughter Margaret at 21A Regents Park Road in central London, where he worked from a studio at home as a successful illustrator. His first drawing for Punch, the English humour magazine, was published in 1912, and his work, particularly cartoons, continued to appear regularly until the time of his death, having become a regular feature after 1921. He also did four drawings a week for Radio Times; illustrated about a dozen books, including Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield; and designed travel posters for the railways and the London Underground. He edited and illustrated A Painter's Anthology.
Watts married Phyllis Sachs, a fellow artist, in 1910. Their only child, Alice Margaret, became costume designer Margaret Furse.(a student at CSAC)
