Collection HCO - Herbert Charles Osterstock

Extent: 6 boxes plus large artwork in Rare Books Room

Artwork, photographs, biographical and misc. material. Paintings (watercolour, gouache), hand-coloured photographs and photographs produced in collaboration with scientists at the JI to illustrate colours and genetic variation.

Admin History: Herbert Charles Osterstock (4 Aug 1876 - 30 May 1942) was an artist, lithographer and photographer. He began working with JI Scientists at Merton in about 1912 at the age of 26, becoming permanent full-time artist and photographer for the institute in 1925. Before the advent of colour photography, black and white photographs were coloured by hand and botanical experiments recorded by hand drawn and coloured illustrations. HCO is best known for his beautiful painted illustrations of tulips for Sir A Daniel Hall's books 'The Book of the Tulip' (1929) and 'The Genus Tulipa' (1940). He was also highly regarded in the institute for helping scientists make apparatus for experiments, designing contraptions for painting and photographic work and mending watches. Although relatively young when he joined the JII, he was already an established illustrator and cartoonist for the Whitehall Gazette and St James Review under the name 'Sphinx', for which he produced portraits and cartoons of notable heads of state and royalty of Europe. The Royal Collection has a full-length portrait painting of Prince Albert, (later George VI) by Osterstock painted in c. 1920s, and he seems to have continued this work in tandem with his work with the JII until at least 1925. Born in Camberwell to a family of German descent, Herbert was left with permanent deafness caused by meningitis as a child and mainly used lip reading and sign language to communicate. His son and grandson, who have compiled information on his early life, were unable to find out where he attended school or how he received his artistic training. However, they noted that Osterstock's father worked as a printer/stationer in London for the Henry Good & Son company. In the 1901 census, Osterstock was employed as a 'lithograph artist' possibly at the printer's company where his father worked. The JI aachive holds a 1897 21st birthday presentation card from his 'fellow cricketers and lithographers' found in a Merton attic and donated to the JIC archives (HCO lived in Merton for most of his life). He continued to work at the JII until his death in 1942 and was succeeded as photographer by Len La Cour, after a gap of some years.