Walter Crane (15 August 1845 – 14 March 1915) was an English artist, book illustrator, and prominent advocate for anti-authoritarian democratic socialism among British socialists and in the labour movement of the 19th century. An artistic activist—retroactively classifiable as an "artivist"—Crane produced a large body of both apolitical illustrations for primarily children's literature, though also contemporary (Victorian era) English adult-audience trade-books and general-interest literature, as well as visual works with explicit socio-political messaging.
He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book designers and illustrators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the late 19th century.
Crane's work featured some of the more colourful and detailed beginnings of the child-in-the-garden motifs that would characterize many nursery rhymes and children's stories for decades to come. He was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and produced an array of paintings, illustrations, children's books, ceramic tiles, wallpapers and other decorative arts. Crane is also remembered for his creation of a number of iconic images associated with the international socialist movement.
A member of Britain's first organized Marxist group, the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), Crane's socio-political views evolved over time, and he variously promoted social liberalism, radical liberalism, liberal socialism, "evolutionary socialism", Fabianism, and democratic socialism.
