Phil May Postcard Artist

Philip William May worked in monochrome with pen and ink. His style was best suited to the Victorian periodical but many of his illustrations were to appear on early comic and social observation postcards.

May was born in Leeds in 1864, the son of a brass founder. By the age of 13 he had left school to begin working life. A restless soul, he spent short periods in various employments, none really suiting him. His first published drawings had appeared in a Yorkshire weekly when he was just 14 years of age, but the publication was not a success. By his 15th year he was working for Stimpsons' touring theatre company where he played minor parts and designed advertising posters.

In 1884 May moved to London but lived in obscure poverty, He managed to get a small number of illustrations published but it was a precarious existance. After some very difficult months the impoverished May returned to Leeds where he found work at the St Stephen’s Review as a junior political cartoonist (it was at this time that he married).

Phil Mays work for the St Stephens Review swiftly led, in late 1885, to an offer of a three year contract with The Australian Sydney Bulletin newspaper. With his wife Lilian he transferred to Australia and went on to produce many hundreds of political, comic, and social observation illustrations.for the Bulletin. While in Australia his lifestyle remained chaotic, centred on a circle of artistic contemporaries.

In 1888 the Sydney Bulletin offered to extend his contract but May decided to return to Europe, at first to Italy and then France where he briefly shared a Paris studio. May finally returned to London in 1890 and worked again for the St Stephens Review where his illustration of the comic "Parson and the Painter' series was at last to bring him fame and recognition. By the early 1890's he was illustrating for the Graphic and in 1895 he joined Punch magazine where a year later he became their chief comic illustrator.

Elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours in 1897 and a founder member of the influential London Sketch Club he served as an inspiration for many. You will discover many familiar names among the other founders and early members of the Sketch Club; Tom Browne, Dudley Hardy, Heath Robinson, John Hassall, and more.

Sadly Philip May was an alcoholic, take a look at the revealing Tom Browne caricature postcard which depicted him as a street urchin child with the red nose of a drinker. With his challenging early life and then subsequent fame it's a familiar pattern. He was a friend and source of inspiration to many. Some say he was a fool with his money, I suspect he simply didn't care too much about such things.

Political cartoonist and social illustrator Philip William May died of cirrhosis and TB in 1903 at the age of thirty-nine. He was buried in the cemetery of St Mary's Church, Kensal Green, London. There were no descendants and his wife Lilian survived him and married again.

Attached are two postcard images, a Phil May postcard depicting East London Life and another by his friend the great Tom Browne depicting May as a child with the fateful red nose and struggling on the streets of London producing a graffiti image of a London Policeman.

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