posted on 12 Nov 2017

Robert Hales: The Strange Case of the Disappearing Children’s Book Illustrator

This is less of an article of appreciation and more of an appeal for help. I have recently been reading a children’s book – The Bookshop Holiday by Constance M. White – that is illustrated by Robert Hales. I was struck by the quality of the drawings, predominantly in pen and ink, that give some real life to the book and clearly capture late 1960s middle class life with some confidence and aplomb.

Pretty certain that I would find a profile of Robert Hales by doing the usual Google search (ok, I know that’s pretty lazy) I was surprised to find that there was nothing about him. His name did crop up on book listing websites but only to acknowledge him as the illustrator of a book for sale and after scrolling through page after page and trying a number of permutations I was still left with nothing.

So, off I went to Alan Horn’s The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators confident that this reference book would solve the mystery – but no. He has an entry all right but it’s just a list of book’s he’s illustrated. Does this man not merit some biographical details – he surely can’t be so dull as to not be worthy of some note?

All of my searches have resulted in the same outcome – nothing much at all. This is the only nugget of information I have and it comes from the back jacket of the Chatto, Boyd & Oliver edition of The Bookshop Holiday:

The artist Robert Hales, trained at the Royal College of Art, where he studies graphic design and painting. He is now engaged in full-time, free-lance illustration work, principally in the field of children’s books.

And that’s it.

So what is it that makes some illustrators and some writers seemingly disappear from the record? I suppose it’s not quite true that Robert Hales has entirely disappeared – his work is still there and his output acknowledged – but what of his life and his background? If it’s wrong to say he’s disappeared then a better description might be that he’s invisible in plain sight.

If anyone should read this piece and have information relating to Robert Hales and his career, I’d love to hear from them so that we can do a better job of acknowledging his contribution to children’s literature.

Terry Potter

November 2017