Frank Cheyne Papé lived a long life. Unfortunately we don’t seem to know very much about it. Papé was born in 1878 and later lived in Tunbridge Wells with his wife Agnes.

He appears to have started illustrating at the beginning of  the 1900’s and hit the big time with his work in James Branch Cabell’s rather risqué ‘Jurgen’ in 1921.

Papé continued his black and white work with more of cabell’s books and other satires. He died in 1972 aged 94.

Below is an example of Papés magical earlier colour work. The Russian Story Book is a ‘retelling of tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources’.

The Russian Story Book – 1916

Then the Princess ran with her feet all bare into the open corridor

Marina lay upon a couch…and fondled a fiery dragon with her right hand

A mountain cave which no man has ever seen

She put her good steed to the walls and leapt lightly over them

It was clear that her fascination still worked upon the hearts of the prisoners

The black-browed maid stood upon the bank as the red ship…sailed away from Novgorod

Diuk stooped and caught Churilo by his yellow curls

“Oh,” said the man, “I am able to do everything”

To find these wonderful pictures and more art by Frank Cheyne Papé on high quality cards, postcards and posters, please click below 🙂