Arthur Wragg

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Arthur Wragg (1903-1976) was a British illustrator.

His stark poster-like artwork often dealt with themes of social aliention and spiritual emptiness. All his work was done for publication, rather than in 'fine art' media such as paintings or series of prints. As a result, he has been neglected in comparison with contemporaries such as Graham Sutherland and John Piper, but Wragg's choice of medium was an ideological one. As a socialist and pacifist, Wragg wanted his art to speak directly to common people rather than to art-lovers. His vivid, polemical style had considerable influence on other popular forms in the 1940s and 1950s, such as government information posters and advertising.

He grew up in Eccles and Harrogate, the child of a travelling salesman and a telegraphist, and trained at Sheffield School of Art before settling in London as a freelance commercial artist, in which capacity he was in continuous demand for the rest of his life. In the 1920s he contributed mostly to various women's illustrated magazines, but later branched out into book-jackets and work for left-wing newspapers such as The Tribune (including cartoons) and illustrations for books and pamhlets about Christian socialism, pacifism and social justice.

Out of this more committed range of work, and out of the social issues raised by the Great Depression of the 1930s, came several books in which Wragg illustrated biblical texts in a politicised way, notably The Psalms for Modern Life (Selwyn & Blount 1933) which went through several reprints. The simplified block-style and dramatic chiaroscuro effects of these illustrations make them resemble woodcuts rather than pen and ink drawings (misleading some collectors into thinking the books are just reissues of hand-printed original editions) and there are many affinities with the visual-symbolic language of propaganda art, although Wragg's agenda is more generalised. Social realities and symbols are blended to convey deprivation, justice, conscience, and the persistence of spiritual values in the alienated urban-industrial environment.

During World War II he was a conscientious objector, as was his friend the popular preacher Rev. Dick Shepherd. After internment, he became an art-teacher in schools, returning to freelance work after the war. His personal style became more airy and more fantastical, and somemes surreal. In the 1970s he produced a long series of record sleeves for the Argo/Decca Shakespeare plays.

As yet there is no catalogue of his work.