| Frank Feller | |
| Birth Date: | 28 October 1848 |
| Birth Place: | Bümpliz-Oberbottigen, Bern, Switzerland |
| Death Place: | Earls Court, London, England |
| Nationality: | Naturalised British citizen of Swiss origin |
| Other Names: | Signed his work either Frank Feller in caps, or with his monogram |
| Occupation: | Painter and illustrator |
| Years Active: | 1870–1908 |
| Known For: | Postcard painting and military pictures |
| Notable Works: | Last Eleven at Maidan |
Frank Feller (1848–1908) was a Swiss artist who settled in England and made a career as an illustrator and painter. He was particularly well known as a painter of military scenes and as a painter of postcards.
Feller was born on 28 October 1848 in Bümpliz-Oberbottigen, a district of the city of Bern, Switzerland. He trained in Geneva, Munich, Paris, and London.
By 1871 Feller was a boarder at 6 Euston Grove, St Pancras, London with the profession of Artist. Ten years later, in 1881, he was now a naturalised British subject. He was lodging at 9 Rowland Street, St. Pancras, London.
Feller married Christine Heuser (Q2 186315 June 1930), on 19 December 1882 at All Saints' Church in Wandsworth, London. Christine had been born in St. George in the East. Her father, Balthazar Heuser (c. 18328 June 1887), ran a Public House here, the Bee-Hive at 71 Christian Street, Whitechapel, London. Her father was a German immigrant who became a naturalised British citizen in 20 April 1874. The couple had eight children:
By 1891 Feller was living at Hazeldene, Knight's Park, Kingston-on-Thames, and described himself as an Artist: Military Painter. He had moved again by 1895, this time to 13 Fitzroy Street. He again moved to 3 Charleville Road, Fulham, London by 1901. He and Christina now had six children. Christina was now operating a millinery and employing others in her enterprise.
Feller's work can be divided up into a number of categories:
These categories are not clearly defined and even overlap. Thus many of the magazines illustration and the postcards show military scenes. Book illustration and magazine illustration are not that far apart. However, it is still a useful scheme for looking closely at his body of work.
Feller was a contribution to many magazines including:
The July 1894 edition of The Strand Magazine contained an article called Marksmanship by Gilber Guerdon. The eleven page article had twenty illustrations, ten of which are shown here. The magazine used good quality paper, so there was no signs of the problems that plagued some of Feller's book illustrations for G. A. Henty, even though the illustrations were wash drawings rather than just pen and ink. Feller's hologram is used to sign the illustration of William Tell, where on the top half is visible, and on the skirts of the woman running the Coconut Shy, where it is clearly visible. The other illustrations bear his name in full.
Painting and drawing military scenes was one of the mainstays of Fellers's work, and The Sphere captioned his photograph The Military Artist in its coverage of his death. In its obituary, The Boy's Own Paper stated that he would be most remembered for:
In 1882 Feller completed what is probably his most famous work, The Last Eleven at Maiwand. It depicted the last eleven men from the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot with their regimental mascot, "Bobby", making a last stand as Afghan horseman approach. The original painting has disappeared, but is known from the print published by Henry Graves in April 1884. The painting was unusual in that it was a watercolour of seven feet (over two metres) in length. The painting received a lot of favourable critical attention:
However Beckett considers the painting to be less skilled than Richard Caton Woodville's Saving the guns at Maiwand. After his success with The last eleven Feller exhibited at the Royal Academy with:
1881 was also when he did his first book illustrations. These were for Gipsy Mike or, Firm as a Rock published by John F. Shaw and Co., London, and G. A. Henty's Out on the Pampas. While the illustrations for Gipsy Mike were pen and ink drawings, those for Out on the Pampas were wash-drawings. Unfortunately these drawings . . . were poorly reproduced by halftone blocks made with too fine a screen for the paper they were printed on." Feller was one of two illustrators whose work for Henty suffered the most from being printed on paper that was too low a quality for the fineness of halftone blocks used.
No complete list of books illustrated by Feller is available. Even comprehensive catalogues such as the Jisc Library Hub Discover have gaps as the names of illustrators are not always recorded when cataloguing even where the publishers provide that information. However by using Jisc, Abe Books, and newspaper archives, it is possible to build a partial list of authors whose work was illustrated by Feller. These include:
The following example of book illustration by Frank Feller is from one of the first books he illustrated Gipsy Mike; or, Firm as a Rock. (1881) by an anonymous author. It was published by J. F. Shaw & Co. Illustrations by courtesy of the British Library. These illustrations look static when compared with Feller's later work.
Feller was well known as a post card artist. His series of card designs for Eyre and Spottiswoode of Sportsmen, Sailors, and Policemen were one of the most popular cards for them in 1881.
Image searches, and the Tuck Database, show that Feller contributed to many different series of postcards including:
Unfortunately Raphael Tuck & Sons, for whom Feller did a great deal of work, had their premises destroyed, together with 40,000 original drawings and all their records, on 29 December 1940, during The Blitz. This naturally limits the number of examples of Feller's work.
Feller also painted postcards for Hildesheimer and Faulkner. The Lancet consideredthat his 1885 Christmas Cards featuring mounted Hussars were very effective. The designs had been purchased by the company between November 1883 and November 1884 as it took five to nine months to lithograph and print each set of cards, and the cards had to be available early enough to allow people to send sets to relatives for this use.
The following postcards were painted by Frank Feller for Raphael Tuck & Sons. The Olivine logo on the cards was one of Tuck's trademarks, and refers to the type of board used.
Feller was living at 8 Wetherby Terrace, Earls Court, London, when he died from a heart attack on 6 March 1908. Both The Sphere and the Boys' Own Paper carried obituaries, the first of these with a photograph. His estate was valued at £500 7s. 6d. and his widow Christina was his executor. His widow was left looking after 5 minor children, the last of which, Louise, was born after the death of her father. By 1910, Christina was managing the Duke William of Cumberland public house (called the Duke William Hotel in the census returns) This had been her father's occupation. She remained there until at least 1914.
Christina married Sydney John South Allen at Brentford in the first quarter of 1913. She died at Willesden General Hospital on 15 June 1930. Her youngest son, Louis Siegfried, was her executor, for an estate valued at only £85 14s.