illustrator howard pyle

      Howard Pyle (March 5, 1853 – November 9, 1911) was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.

      In 1894 he began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University). After 1900, he founded his own school of art and illustration, named the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art. The scholar Henry C. Pitz later used the term Brandywine School for the illustration artists and Wyeth family artists of the Brandywine region, several of whom had studied with Pyle. Some of his more notable students were N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Elenore Abbott, Ethel Franklin Betts, Anna Whelan Betts, Harvey Dunn, Clyde O. DeLand, Philip R. Goodwin, Thornton Oakley, Violet Oakley, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle, Olive Rush, Allen Tupper True, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Arthur E. Becher, William James Aylward, and Jessie Willcox Smith. Pyle's home and studio in Wilmington, where he taught his students, is still standing and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

      His 1883 classic publication The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood remains in print, and his other books, frequently with medieval European settings, include a four-volume set on King Arthur. He is also well known for his illustrations of pirates, and is credited with creating what has become the modern stereotype of pirate dress. He published his first novel, Otto of the Silver Hand, in 1888. He also illustrated historical and adventure stories for periodicals such as Harper's Magazine and St. Nicholas Magazine. His novel Men of Iron was adapted as the movie The Black Shield of Falworth (1954).

      Pyle traveled to Florence, Italy in 1910 to study mural painting. He died there in 1911 of a sudden kidney infection (Bright's Disease). Read more . . . 

      Below I've restored a few of Pyle's paintings. You can visit a collection of his illustrations restored for children to color at my Crayon Palace blog here.

Captain Keitt by Howard Pyle.

Attack On A Galleon by Howard Pyle.

Illustration by Howard Pyle from "The Price of Blood"

illustrator arthur rackham

Illustrator Arthur Rackham.

      Rackham was born in Lewisham, then still part of Kent as one of 12 children. In 1884, at the age of 17, he was sent on an ocean voyage to Australia to improve his fragile health, accompanied by two aunts. At the age of 18, he worked as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office and began studying part-time at the Lambeth School of Art.

      In 1892, he left his job and started working for the Westminster Budget as a reporter and illustrator. His first book illustrations were published in 1893 in To the Other Side by Thomas Rhodes, but his first serious commission was in 1894 for The Dolly Dialogues, the collected sketches of Anthony Hope, who later went on to write The Prisoner of Zenda. Book illustrating then became Rackham's career for the rest of his life.

      By the turn of the century Rackham had developed a reputation for pen and ink fantasy illustration with richly illustrated gift books such as The Ingoldsby Legends (1898), Gulliver's Travels and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (both 1900). This was developed further through the austere years of the Boer War with regular contributions to children's periodicals such as Little Folks and Cassell's Magazine. In 1901 he moved to Wychcombe Studios near Haverstock Hill, and in 1903 married his neighbour Edyth Starkie. Edith suffered a miscarriage in 1904, but the couple had one daughter, Barbara, in 1908. Although acknowledged as an accomplished black-and-white book illustrator for some years, it was the publication of his full colour plates to Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle by Heinemann in 1905 that particularly brought him into public attention, his reputation being confirmed the following year with J.M.Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, published by Hodder & Stoughton. Income from the books was greatly augmented by annual exhibitions of the artwork at the Leicester Galleries. Rackham won a gold medal at the Milan International Exhibition in 1906 and another one at the Barcelona International Exposition in 1912. His works were included in numerous exhibitions, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914.

      From 1906 the family lived in Chalcot Gardens, near Haverstock Hill, until moving from London to Houghton, West Sussex in 1920. In 1929 the family settled into a newly built property in Limpsfield, Surrey. Arthur Rackham died in 1939 of cancer at his home. Read more . . .

I've restored samples from Arthur Rackham's illustrated volume of English Fairy Tales

"fee-fi-fo-fum," I smell the blood of an Englishman

Mr. and Mrs. Vinegar at home.

She went along, and went along...

illustrator edmund dulac

      Edmund Dulac (born Edmond Dulac; October 22, 1882 – May 25, 1953) was a French-born, British naturalized magazine illustrator, book illustrator and stamp designer. Born in Toulouse he studied law but later turned to the study of art the École des Beaux-Arts. He moved to London early in the 20th century and in 1905 received his first commission to illustrate the novels of the Brontë Sisters. During World War I, Dulac produced relief books and when after the war the deluxe children's book market shrank he turned to magazine illustrations among other ventures. He designed banknotes during World War II and postage stamps, most notably those that heralded the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.

      Born in Toulouse, France, he began his career by studying law at the University of Toulouse. He also studied art, switching to it full-time after he became bored with law, and having won prizes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He spent a very brief period at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1904 before moving to London.

"The Chestnut Horse" painting by Dulac.

      Settling in London's Holland Park, the 22-year-old Frenchman was commissioned by the publisher J. M. Dent to illustrate Jane Eyre. and nine other volumes of works by the Brontë sisters. He then became a regular contributor to The Pall Mall Magazine, and joined the London Sketch Club, which introduced him to the foremost book and magazine illustrators of the day. Through these he began an association with the Leicester Galleries and Hodder & Stoughton; the gallery commissioned illustrations from Dulac which they sold in an annual exhibition, while publishing rights to the paintings were taken up by Hodder & Stoughton for reproduction in illustrated gift books, publishing one book a year. Books produced under this arrangement by Dulac include Stories from The Arabian Nights (1907) with 50 color images; an edition of William Shakespeare's The Tempest (1908) with 40 color illustrations; The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1909) with 20 colour images; The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales (1910); Stories from Hans Christian Andersen (1911); The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe (1912) with 28 color images and many monotone illustrations; and Princess Badoura (1913).

      During World War I he contributed to relief books, including King Albert's Book (1914), Princess Mary's Gift Book, and, unusually, his own Edmund Dulac's Picture-Book for the French Red Cross (1915) including 20 color images. Hodder and Stoughton also published The Dreamer of Dreams (1915) including 6 color images - a work composed by the then Queen of Romania.

      Dulac's wife was Helen Beauclerk, author of The Green Lacqueur Pavilion, 1926, and The Love of the Foolish Angel, 1929, both of which books have his illustrations.

      After the war, the deluxe edition illustrated book became a rarity and Dulac's career in this field was over. His last such books were Edmund Dulac's Fairy Book (1916), the Tanglewood Tales (1918) (including 14 color images) and the The Kingdom of the Pearl (1920). His career continued in other areas however, including newspaper caricatures (especially at The Outlook), portraiture, theater costume and set design, bookplates, chocolate boxes, medals, and various graphics (especially for The Mercury Theater, Notting Hill Gate).

      He also produced illustrations for The American Weekly, a Sunday supplement belonging to the Hearst newspaper chain in America and Britain's Country Life. Country Life Limited (London) published Gods and Mortals in Love (1935) (including 9 color images) based on a number of the contributions made by Dulac to Country Life previously. The Daughter of the Stars (1939) was a further publication to benefit from Dulac's artwork - due to constraints related to the outbreak of World War II, that title included just 2 color images. He continued to produce books for the rest of his life, more so than any of his contemporaries, although these were less frequent and less lavish than during the Golden Age.

Dulac designed 1953 coronation
 stamp denominated 1/3

      Halfway through his final book commission (Milton's Comus), Dulac died of a heart attack on 25 May 1953 in London.

      He designed postage stamps for Great Britain, including the postage stamp issued to commemorate the Coronation of King George VI that was issued on 13 May 1937. The head of the King used on all the stamps of that reign was his design and he also designed the 2s 6d and 5s values for the 'arms series' high value difinitives and contributed designs for the sets of stamps issued to commemorate the 1948 Summer Olympics and the Festival of Britain.

      Dulac was one of the designers of the Wilding series stamps, which were the first definitive stamps of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. He was responsible for the frame around the image of the Queen on the 1s, 1s 3d and 1s 6d values although his image of the Queen was rejected in favor of a photographic portrait by Dorothy Wilding to which he carried out some modifications by hand. He also designed the 1s 3d value stamp of the set issued to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II but he died just before it was issued.

      Dulac designed stamps (Marianne de Londres series) and banknotes for Free France during World War II. In the early 1940s Edmund Dulac also prepared a project for a Polish 20-zlotych note for the Bank of Poland (Bank Polski). This banknote (printed in England in 1942 but dated 1939) was ordered by the Polish Government in Exile and was never issued.

Some restored samples of Dulac's work:

Ariel from Shakespeare by Dulac.

"Cinderella" by Dulac.

"Moonlight and Sea Fairies" by Edmund Dulac.

A painting from "Arabian Nights" by Dulac.

More Related Links to Edmund Dulac:

• Works by Edmund Dulac at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Edmund Dulac at Internet Archive
  • Dulac's Arabian Nights (Hodder & Stoughton 1907)
• The Kingdom of the Pearl
• Edmund Dulac Collection at the harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

illustrator arthur gaskin

A fairy tale queen by Arthur Joseph Gaskin.

      Arthur Joseph Gaskin born on the 16th of March 1862 and died on the 4th of June 1928, was an English illustrator, painter, teacher and designer of jewellery and enamel work.

      Gaskin and his wife Georgie Gaskin were members of the Birmingham Group of Artist-Craftsmen, which sought to apply the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement across the decorative arts. Like many of the group, Gaskin studied at the Birmingham School of Art under Edward R. Taylor and later taught there.

      Gaskin was born in the Lee Bank area of Birmingham in 1862, the son of a decorator. He was brought up in Wolverhampton where he attended Wolverhampton Grammar School before returning to Birmingham in 1879.

      In 1883 Gaskin entered the Birmingham School of Art, being appointed to the teaching staff two years later despite not completing his course. It was here that he met Georgie Gaskin in 1888, one of his students, whom he married in 1894. Gaskin worked as a decorative artist from 1890, producing woodcut illustrations for William Morris's Kelmscott Press, and painted in tempera after receiving instruction from his friend Joseph Southall at Southall's studio in Edgbaston.

      The Gaskins started producing jewellery from 1899 under the name "Mr & Mrs Arthur Gaskin", and in 1903 Arthur was appointed headmaster of the Vittoria Street School for Jewellers and Silversmiths, where he was to remain until 1924, when the couple retired to Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.

      As a Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA), Gaskin was instrumental in organizing the exhibition 'The New Movement in Art' at the Society in 1917. This was a revised version of Roger Fry's Post-Impressionist exhibition held in 1910.

Samples of jewelry designed by Arthur Joseph Gaskin,
 an artist who worked with a variety of different mediums.

illustrator bessie pease gutmann

Text, "Are You There?" was original to the work but in
black font. I love this antique phone!

      Bessie Pease Gutmann (April 8, 1876 – September 1929, 1960) was an American artist and illustrator most noted for her paintings of putti, infants and young children. During the early 1900s Gutmann was considered one of the better-known magazine and book illustrators in the United States. Her artwork was featured on 22 magazine covers such as Woman's Home Companion and McCall's between 1906 and 1920. She also illustrated popular children's books including a notable 1907 edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Although the commercial popularity of Gutmann's art declined during World War II, there was renewed interest in her illustrations from collectors by the late 20th century.

      Gutmann was born Bessie Collins Pease on April 8, 1876 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Horace Collins. After graduating from high school, she studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. From 1896 to 1898, she attended the New York School of Art (later Parsons, The New School). She also attended Art Students League of New York from 1899 to 1901.

      Bessie initially worked as an independent commercial artist drawing portraits and newspapers advertisements. In 1903, she gained employment with the publishing firm of Gutmann & Gutmann which specialized in fine art prints. Her first illustration of a children's book, published in 1905, was A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Gutmann illustrated several more books including a notable 1907 version of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She also created artwork for postcards and calendars, and her art adorned 22 magazine covers for McCall's, Collier's, Woman's Home Companion, and Pictorial Review, among others. Her greatest recognition came from a series of hand-colored prints which highlighted the innocence of young children. Two of her most notable works were A Little Bit of Heaven and The Awakening which both focused on the face and hands of an infant tucked under a blanket. Gutmann's work was popular through the 1920s, but by World War II, interest in her style had declined. Due to failing eyesight, she retired from drawing in 1947.

      In 1906, Bessie married Hellmuth Gutmann, one of the brothers who co-owned the publishing firm where she was employed. The couple had three children, Alice, Lucille, and John, who became the models for Gutmann's illustrations.

      She died on September 29, 1960 in Centerport, New York at the age of 84.
      I've restored the few examples of her work, for this article, that I have in my collection. Not all of Gutmann's works are in the public domain. But certainly those illustrations published by companies other than her own prior to 1923 would be.

Sweet baby in a red high chair, sucking his fingers.

Print of a sleepy eyed baby. These are what Bessie Pease Gutmann was famous for.

More Links to Bessie Pease Gutmann:

• A Child's Garden of Verses illustrated by Gutmann 
• A busy day in dollville, my first encounter with Bessie Pease Gutmann's Art
• Art Markets: Early influences shape a legacy of unmatched artistry

illustrator maud humphrey

      Maud Humphrey (March 30, 1868 – 1940) was a commercial illustrator, water colorist, and suffragette from the United States. She was also the mother of actor Humphrey Bogart and would frequently use her young son as a model.

      She was born in Rochester, New York in 1868 to John Perkins Humphrey and Frances V. Dewey Churchill. She studied at the Art Students League of New York and in Paris at the Julian Academy.

She married Dr. Belmont DeForest Bogart (1867–1934); they had one son, Humphrey, and two daughters.

      She won a Louis Prang and Company competition for Christmas card design and then began working for publisher F. A. Stokes as an illustrator. From the 1890s through the 1920s, her work Included child portraits, "illustrating calendars, greeting cards, postcards, fashion magazines, and more than 20 story books." She earned more than $50,000 a year while her husband's surgical practice brought in $20,000 a year.

      E. Richards McKinstry of the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library observed in his article Heres's Looking at You, Maud, that the Gerber Products logo illustration for its strained baby food was not created until Humphrey Bogart was an adult.

      Maud Humphrey died in 1940 and was interred in the Columbarium at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale).

      I've restored works by Maud Humphrey below for those of you who would like to include them in your letters from home.

Baby's Prayer

Baby Carriage

Rose Petals

Big Brother

 More Links to Maud Humphrey:

• Here's Looking at You Maud
• Bogie's Kisser

 "Beautiful portraits of little girls painted by

 US-American artist and illustrator Maud

 Humphrey (1868- 1940), mother of actor

 Humphrey Bogart, set in motion."

illustrator grace drayton

        Grace Drayton (October 14, 1877 – January 31, 1936) was an illustrator who created popular period comics Dolly Dimples (1910) and The Pussycat Princess (1935). She created the "Campbell Soup Kids" advertising campaign and is probably best known for her popular Dolly Dingle paper dolls in the women's magazine Pictorial Review. She frequently collaborated with her sister, Margaret G. Hays, also a comic strip author and writer.

       Christened Viola Grace Gebbie, in 1900 she married Theodore Wiederseim and started signing her work "Grace Wiederseim." In 1911, Grace divorced Wiederseim and married W. Drayton, and started signing her work Grace Drayton. She divorced Drayton in 1923 but continued to sign her work "Grace Drayton" or "G G Drayton."

       She was an early member of Philadelphia's The Plastic Club.

       Some of Draytons' work is in the public domain and some of it is not. Be careful to scrutinize the publishing dates when looking at her work.

Read more about Grace Drayton:

• I've created some coloring pages of Grace Drayton's Children at the Crayon Palace for little ones.
• Grace illustrated "Molly and The Unwiseman Abroad"
• Ask the Archivist: Grace G. Drayton
• PDF from The Historical Society of Pennsylvania "The Plastic Club Records: 1888-2007"

Grace Drayton was married and divorced twice. Her second husband's name was Drayton,
 her first husband's name was Wiederseim. After her second divorce she retained the name of Drayton.

illustrator vera stone norman

       Vera Stone Norman was born in Garden City in 1888. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1921. She is best known for the children’s illustrations she produced for magazine and books during the late 1920s and 30s. The majority of those books being Elementary text-books.

Above, Illustration of “brownies” (fairies) by Vera Stone Norman. Below, Illustration of Deep Sea Divers by Vera Stone Norman.

Links to more Vera Stone Norman artworks:

• Illustrations by Vera Stone (Norman)
• Samples from “Health Stories and Practice, 1931″ illustrated by Vera Stone Norman. (not Store)

illustrator wladyslaw t. benda

      Władysław Teodor “W.T.” Benda (January 15, 1873, Poznań, Poland (Posen, German Empire) – November 30, 1948, Newark, New Jersey, United States) was a Polish-American painter, illustrator, and designer.

      The son of musician Jan Szymon Benda, and a nephew of the actress Helena Modrzejewska (known in the United States as Helena Modjeska), W.T. Benda studied art at the Krakow College of Technology and Art in his native Poland and at the School of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. He came to the United States at the very end of the 19th century, to visit his Aunt Helena, who then lived in California. He stayed, and moved to New York City in 1902, where he attended the Art Students League of New York and the William Merritt Chase School. While there, Benda studied under Robert Henri and Edward Penfield.

      He joined the Society of Illustrators in 1907, the Architectural League in 1916, and became a naturalized American in 1911. He was also a member of the National Society of Mural Painters. He remained in NYC for the rest of his life. Benda married Romola Campfield, and they had two daughters, Eleanora and Baria, who were both artists.

      Starting in 1905, Benda was primarily a graphic artist. He illustrated books, short stories, advertising copy, and magazine covers for Collier’s, McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Theatre Magazine and many others. Many publishers regarded Benda as their go-to artist for his dependability and artistic abilities. In his time he was as well known as Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth or Maxfield Parrish. During the 1920s/1930s every publication sought the look of “the American Girl,” but Benda’s beautiful women were often exotic and mysterious, not homespun pretty like the girls of Harrison Fisher or Howard Chandler Christy. Benda was fiercely proud of his Polish heritage and became closely associated with the Polish-American cultural institution, The Kosciuszko Foundation (see below). During the two World Wars he designed many posters for both Poland and America. He was honored with the ‘Polonia Restituta’ decoration by the Polish government following World War I.

      Beginning in 1914, Benda was also an accomplished mask maker and costume designer. His sculpted, papier-mache face masks were used in plays and dances and often in his own paintings and illustrations. They were used in masques or miracle plays in New York City at venues like the New York Coffee House. Benda also created the masks for stage productions in New York and London for such writers as Eugene O’Neil and Noël Coward. He became so well-known as a mask maker that his name became synonymous for any life-like mask, whether it was of his design or not. Benda also created “grotesque” masks, which were more fantasy or caricature in nature. Benda created the original mask design for the movie The Mask of Fu Manchu, which was originally published as a twelve part serial in Collier’s from May 7, 1932 through July 23, 1932. The cover of the May 7 issue presented a stunning portrait by Benda. In the latter stages of his career, Benda spent less time doing illustration and more time making masks.

       Articles by and about Benda and his masks appeared regularly in many of the same magazines and publications that carried his illustrations. In the 1930s he authored the Encyclopædia Britannica entry on masks. He also wrote a book, Masks (Watson-Guptill, 1944, currently out of print), a study of his own designs and unique construction techniques. The Polish Museum of America possesses a collection of Benda’s posters for the relief effort in Poland.

More Links to Artworks and Illustrations by Wladyslaw T. Benda:

• The Indian Drum illustrated by Benda
• Biography and samples of his work 
• Magazine and Book Covers by Benda
• Video of his works at YouTube
• American Beauties from Library of Congress Exhibition
• Photos of Benda

A Girl of The Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter, 
(Read Online if you’d like) Illustrations by Wladyslaw T. Benda. 
New York Doubleday, Page & Company, 1909. Title Page.

“‘Edith, what did you say to Miss Comstock
 that made her run away from Phil?’”

“Elenora knelt and slipping her fingers through the leaves 
and grasses to the roots, gathered a few violets and gave them to Philip”

“‘If you had known about wonders like these in the days of your youth, 
Robert Comstock, could you ever have done the thing you did?’”

“With her lips near Elnora’s ear Polly whispered, ‘Sister! dear sister!’”

illustrator harry clarke

      Harry Clarke (March 17, 1889 – January 6, 1931) was an Irish stained glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement.

      The son of a craftsman, Joshua Clarke, Clarke the younger was exposed to art (and in particular Art Nouveau) at an early age. He went to school in Belvedere College in Dublin. By his late teens, he was studying stained glass at the Dublin Art School. While there his The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St. Patrick won the gold medal for stained glass work in the 1910 Board of Education National Competition.

      Completing his education in his main field, Clarke travelled to London, where he sought employment as a book illustrator. Picked up by London publisher Harrap, he started with two commissions which were never completed: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (his work on which was destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising) and an illustrated edition of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.

      Difficulties with these projects made Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen his first printed work, however, in 1916—a title that included 16 colour plates and more than 24 monotone illustrations. This was closely followed by an illustrations for an edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination: the first version of that title was restricted to monotone illustrations, while a second iteration with 8 colour plates and more than 24 monotone images was published in 1923.

      The latter of these made his reputation as a book illustrator (this was during the golden age of gift-book illustration in the first quarter of the twentieth century: Clarke’s work can be compared to that of Aubrey Beardsley, Kay Nielsen, and Edmund Dulac). It was followed by editions of The Years at the Spring, containing 12 colour plates and more than 14 monotone images; (Lettice D’O. Walters, ed., 1920), Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales of Perrault, and Goethe’s Faust, containing 8 colour plates and more than 70 monotone and duotone images (New York: Hartsdale House,1925). The last of these is perhaps his most famous work, and prefigures the disturbing imagery of 1960s psychedelia.

      Two of his most sought-after titles include promotional booklets for Jameson Irish Whiskey: A History of a Great House (1924, and subsequent reprints) and Elixir of Life (1925), which was written by Geofrey Warren.

      His final book was Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne, which was published in 1928. In the meantime, he had also been working hard in stained glass, producing more than 130 windows, he and his brother, Walter, having taken over his father’s studio after his death in 1921.

      Stained glass is central to Clarke’s career. His glass is distinguished by the finesse of its drawing, unusual in the medium, his use of rich colours (inspired by an early visit to see the stained glass of the Cathedral of Chartres, he was especially fond of deep blues), and an innovative integration of the window leading as part of the overall design (his use of heavy lines in his black and white book illustrations is probably derived from his glass techniques).

      Clarke’s stained glass work includes many religious windows but also much secular stained glass. Highlights of the former include the windows of the Honan Chapel in University College Cork, of the latter, a window illustrating John Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes (now in the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery in Dublin) and the Geneva Window. Perhaps his most seen work was the windows of Bewley’s Café on Dublin’s Grafton Street.

      Unfortunately, ill health plagued both the Clarke brothers, and worn down by the pace of their work, and perhaps the toxic chemicals used in stained glass production, both died within a year of each other—Harry second in early 1931, of tuberculosis while trying to recuperate in Switzerland.

      Clarke’s work was influenced by both the passing Art Nouveau and coming Art Deco movements. His stained glass was particularly informed by the French Symbolist movement.

• Harry Clarke’s family tree
• Works by Harry Clarke at Project Gutenberg
• The Art of Harry Clarke at Grandmas Graphics
• Beautifully scanned illustrations by Clarke for E. A. Poe
• Harry Clarke at tumblr

Illustrations by Clarke from Fairy Tales by “Hans Andersen”

 

illustrator nell brinkley

      Nell Brinkley (September 5, 1886 – October 21, 1944) was an American illustrator and comic artist who was sometimes referred to as the “Queen of Comics” during her nearly four-decade career working with New York newspapers and magazines. She was the creator of the iconic Brinkley Girl, a stylish character who appeared in her comics and became a popular symbol in songs, films and theater.

      Nell Brinkley was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1886 (some sources say 1888), but her family soon moved to the small town of Edgewater on Denver’s western border, facing Sloan’s Lake at Manhattan Beach. She was not formally trained in the arts, and dropped out of high school to follow her natural talent with pen and ink. As a tot, she drew place-setting illustrations of knobby-kneed kiddies for Mary Elitch’s garden parties at Elitch Gardens. At the age of 16, she was already accomplished at illustration. She illustrated the book cover and 25 illustrations for a 1906 children’s book, Wally Wish and Maggie Magpie by A.U. Mayfield. She was hired to do pen-and-ink drawings for The Denver Post and later the Rocky Mountain News.

      Her skills were noticed in 1907 by media mogul William Randolph Hearst and his editor Arthur Brisbane. Though still a teenager, she was convinced to move from Denver to Brooklyn, New York, with her mother. She began working in downtown Manhattan with the Journal, where she produced large detailed illustrations with commentary almost daily. The newspaper’s circulation boomed; her artwork was featured in the magazine section.

      Within a year of her arrival in New York, she became well known for her breezy and entertaining creations. The curly-haired everyday working-girl drawings were known as the Brinkley Girl, who soon upstaged Charles Dana Gibson’s Gibson Girl. The Ziegfeld Follies (1908) used the Brinkley Girl as a theme, and three popular songs were written about her. Bloomingdale’s department store featured a Nell Brinkley Day with advertisements using many of her drawings. Women emulated the hairstyles in the cartoons and purchased Nell Brinkley Hair Curlers for ten cents a card. Young girls saved her drawings, colored them and pasted them in scrapbooks. The Denver Press Club greeted her when she vacationed in Colorado in the summer of 1908. Nell was most famous for her representing “relationships between boy and girl—man and woman—Bettys and Billies.” Her illustrations used the drawing of “Dan Cupid” to represent the presence of that something most people call “love”.

Brinkley’s reputation was also established by an early assignment to cover the sensational murder trial of Harry K. Thaw. She was assigned many interviews with the actress-wife, Evelyn Nesbit. In later years, she covered other infamous murder trials. She produced numerous courtroom illustrations printed in the Evening Journal and other Hearst newspapers.

      Nell flew with Glen Martin in his new biplane and reported the daring swoopings and the landing for her readers. Nell helped with War Bond drives, and she entertained and consoled those at home and the American youth abroad, during and just after World War I. She traveled to Washington, D.C. where she interviewed many young ladies who had left their homes to become defense workers.

      Nell also became known for the charming text that accompanied her stories and reporting while she worked at the Evening Journal and other publications that included Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Magazine. She produced many illustrated theatre reviews and profiles of mothers and young women in society, including later, in the 1930s First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Much of her writing promoted the working women of the time, and encouraged the expansion of women’s rights.

      Her work was distributed to newspapers internationally by King Features Syndicate. By 1935, however, photography began to replace illustrations in newspapers. She had become the most prolific and famous romantic writer-illustrator. Later, she illustrated books and produced topical multi-panel art pages of art. One was collected in a 1943 anthology of comics.

      In 1944, when large headlines were about the battles of World War II, Nell Brinkley quietly died after over 30 years of entertaining fans from the “most read newspapers,” the major media of her time—she was soon to be forgotten. Her mother and father and Nell are buried in a New Rochelle, New York cemetery.

More Links to Nell Brinkley:

• Nell Brinkley: Forgotten Heroes
• Find Brinkley cartoons at the Ohio State University
• Nell Brinkley on tumblr
• “The Last of Summer” by Nell Brinkley
• A category dedicated to Nell Brinkley now open at http://eastereggcrafts.blogspot.com
• The Butterfly and Bee

Portraits of Ladies by Nell Brinkley:

illustrator ruth mary hallock

      Ruth Mary Hallock (1876-1945) illustrated children’s books for half a century. One of her earliest works was, “Little Rhymes for Little Readers” published in 1903. Many of her popular illustrations were republished in 1950 editions of children’s storybooks after her death.

More Links to Ruth Mary Hallock’s Artworks:

• Storyland – Music Appreciation
• Illustrator Ruth Mary Hallock
• Early Illustrators of a Child’s Garden Verses
• Ruth Mary Hallock at Children’s Imaginative Illustrations
• Ruth Mary Hallock at Ask Art
• 1927 “Wishing on the Evening Star” by Ruth Mary Hallock
• “What they say in Rabbitville, 1935″ by Hallock
• Vintage print by Hallock
• “Sewing Basket Stories,” Illustrated by Ruth Mary Hallock

illustrator rose o'neill

      Rose Cecil O’Neill (June 25, 1874 – April 6, 1944) was an illustrator who created a popular period comic called Kewpie. She was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania as the second of seven children to William Patrick and Alice Asenath “Meemie” Smith O’Neill. As a child Rose loved to draw, and her father would leave specially sharpened pencils and blank paper around the house for her. At the age of 13 Rose entered a children’s drawing competition sponsored by the Omaha Herald and won first prize. Within two years she was doing illustrations for the Excelsior and The Great Divide and other periodicals with help from the editor at the Omaha World-Herald and the Art Director from Everybody Magazine that had judged the competition. The income helped support her family which her father had not been able to do as a bookseller. Later O’Neill’s father decided she would do even better if she went to New York City. William Patrick O’Neill took his daughter in 1893 to NYC stopping in Chicago to see the World Columbian Exposition where she saw large paintings and sculptures for the first time that she had only seen in her fathers books. Once in New York Rose was left on her own to live with the Sisters of St. Regis. The nuns accompanied her to various publishers to sell from her portfolio of 60 drawings. Rose sold all her work and took orders for more. Soon she was an extremely popular illustrator and was being paid top dollar for her work. In the September 19, 1896 issue of True Magazine O’Neill became the first American women cartoonist with “The Old Subscriber” cartoon strip. While O’Neill was in New York her father made a homestead claimed on a small tract of land in the Ozarks wilderness of southern Missouri. The tract had a ‘dog-trot’ cabin with two log cabins and a breezeway between, with one cabin used for eating and living and the other for sleeping. A year later Rose visited the land, which became known as Bonniebrook”. During this time O’Neill joined the staff of Puck magazine.

      A few years later, while in Omaha, Nebraska, Rose met a young Virginian named Gray Latham. Visiting O’Neill in New York City, Latham continued writing to her when she went to Missouri to see her family. After Latham’s father went to Mexico to make films, he went to Bonniebrook in 1896. Concerned with the welfare of her family, O’Neill sent much of her paycheck home to her family. With it her family built a 14-room mansion.

      In the following years O’Neill became unhappy with Latham, as he liked “living large”, including gambling, and was known as a playboy. With very expensive tastes, O’Neill found that Latham had taken her paychecks and spent them on himself. After having her money stolen by Latham, O’Neill moved to Taney County, Missouri where she filed for divorce in 1901, moving to Bonniebrook permanently.

      After a short period of time O’Neill began receiving anonymous letters and gifts in the mail, eventually learning they were coming from an assistant editor at Puck. She married Harry Leon Wilson in 1902. After a honeymoon in Colorado they moved to Bonniebrook where they lived for the next several winters. During the first three years Harry wrote a novel, for which Rose drew illustrations. One of Harry’s later novels, Ruggles of Red Gap, became popular and was made into several motion pictures, including a silent movie, a “talkie” starring Charles Laughton, and then a remake called Fancy Pants starring Lucille Ball and Bob Hope. Harry and Rose divorced in 1907.

After returning to Bonniebrook, Rose concentrated on her artwork. During that period, O’Neill created the Kewpie characters she became popular for. The cartoon was instantly famous. In 1912 a German porcelain manufacturer started making Kewpie dolls, and that year she and her sister went to Germany to show the porcelain artists how to make the dolls the way she wanted them.

      Becoming known as the “Queen of Bohemian Society” O’Neill became a women’s rights advocate. Her properties included Bonniebrook; an apartment in Washington Square in Greenwich Village that inspired the song Rose of Washington Square; Castle Carabas in Connecticut; and Villa Narcissus on the Isle of Capri, Italy. Considered one of the world’s five most beautiful women, O’Neill made a fortune of $1.4 million, (approximately $15 million).

      O’Neill continued working, even at her wealthiest. Perhaps driven by the unfortunate circumstances in her life to express herself, along with the needs of her family, she delved into different types of art. She learned sculpture at the hand of Auguste Rodin (The Thinker), and had several exhibitions of her “Sweet Monsters” in Paris and the United States. She held open salons in her Washington Square apartment where poets, actors, dancers and the ‘great thinkers’ of her day would gather. O’Neill often continued her drawing until early morning.

      In 1937 O’Neill returned to Bonniebrook permanently. By the 1940s she lost most of her money and her beautiful homes because of her extravagant nature, and after fully supporting her family, her entourage of “artistic” hangers-on and her first husband. The Great Depression hurt O’Neill’s fortune. During that period O’Neill was dismayed to find that her work was no longer in demand. The Kewpie character phenomena, after 30 years of popularity, faded, and photography was replacing illustrating as a commercial vehicle. O’Neill decided to make another doll, eventually creating Little Ho Ho, which was a laughing baby Buddha. However, before plans could be finalized for production of the new little figure, the factory burnt to the ground.

      O’Neill became a prominent personality in the Branson, Missouri community, donating her time and pieces of artwork to the School of the Ozarks at Point Lookout, Missouri. She lectured at artist’s workshops and continued to address women’s groups.

       In April 1944, O’Neill died at the home of her nephew in Springfield, Missouri. She is interred in the family cemetery at Bonniebrook next to her mother and several family members.

Books and Short Stories About The Kewpies:

• The Loves of Edwy. Boston: Lothrop, 1904
• The Kewpies and Dottie Darling. New York: George Doran, Co., 1910
• The First of the Kewpie Kutouts. New York: F.A. Stokes, 1912
• The Kewpies. Their Book. New York: F.A. Stokes, 1912
• Scootles in Kewpieville. New York: Saalfield, 1936
• “The Kewpies’ Christmas Frolic.” Ladies Home Journal Dec. 1909
• “The Kewpies and the Aeroplane.” Ladies Home Journal Jan. 1910
• “The Kewpies’ Christmas Party.” Woman’s Home Companion Dec. 1911
• “The Kewpies and Their School of Jollity.” Good Housekeeping Mar. 1918
• “The Kewpie That Wanted to Be a Real Baby.” Good Housekeeping Apr. 1919
• “The Kewpies and the Proud Children.” Good Housekeeping Feb. 1919
• “Kewpieville.” Ladies Home Journal Mar. 1927

More Links to Artworks and Life of Rose O’Neill:

• The Kewpie Primer
• Rose O’Neill and Bonniebrook Museum
• American Art Archives – Rose O’Neill (1875 – 1944)
• Rose O’Neill and the Kewpies
• Historic Missourians
• Postcard Illustrations by Rose O’Neill
• Women’s History Month – Rose O’Neill
• Rose O’Neill’s Winsome Kewpies
• Comic Art Collection for Rose O’Neill
• International Rose O’Neill Club Foundation
• A Rose Amidst Thorns
• Kewpishly Yours Rose O’Neill

illustrator beatrix potter

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread
 and milk and blackberries for supper.

      Helen Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943) was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.

      Born into a privileged Unitarian family, Potter, along with her younger brother, Walter Bertram (1872–1918), grew up with few friends outside her large extended family. Her parents were artistic, interested in nature and enjoyed the countryside. As children, Beatrix and Bertram had numerous small animals as pets which they observed closely and drew endlessly. Summer holidays were spent in Scotland and in the English Lake District where Beatrix developed a love of the natural world which was the subject of her painting from an early age.

      She was educated by private governesses until she was eighteen. Her study of languages, literature, science and history was broad and she was an eager student. Her artistic talents were recognized early. Although she was provided with private art lessons, Potter preferred to develop her own style, particularly favouring watercolor. Along with her drawings of her animals, real and imagined, she illustrated insects, fossils, archeological artifacts, and fungi. In the 1890s her mycological illustrations and research on the reproduction of fungi spores generated interest from the scientific establishment. Following some success illustrating cards and booklets, Potter wrote and illustrated The Tale of Peter Rabbit publishing it first privately in 1901, and a year later as a small, three-color illustrated book with Frederick Warne & Co. She became unofficially engaged to her editor Norman Warne in 1905 despite the disapproval of her parents, but he died suddenly a month later, of leukemia.

      With the proceeds from the books and a legacy from an aunt, Potter bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey, a tiny village in the English Lake District near Ambleside in 1905. Over the next several decades, she purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape. In 1913, at the age of 47, she married William Heelis, a respected local solicitor from Hawkshead. Potter was also a prize-winning breeder of Herdwick sheep and a prosperous farmer keenly interested in land preservation. She continued to write, illustrate and design spin-off merchandise based on her children’s books for Warne until the duties of land management and diminishing eyesight made it difficult to continue. Potter published over twenty-three books; the best known are those written between 1902 and 1922. She died on 22 December 1943 at her home in Near Sawrey at age 77, leaving almost all her property to the National Trust. She is credited with preserving much of the land that now comprises the Lake District National Park.

Illustrations posted here are from The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.

Mrs Rabbit, ” you may go into the fields or down the lane,
 but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden: your Father had
 an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.’

Peter ate some lettuces and some French beans;
 and then he ate some radishes from 
Mr. McGregor’s garden.

 

Additional External Links to Beatrix Potter:

• Beatrix Potter’s fossils and her interest in geology – B. G. Gardiner
• Works by Beatrix Potter at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
• Collection of Potter materials at Victoria and Albert Museum
• Beatrix Potter online feature at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences
• Beatrix Potter in Cumbria
• Beatrix Potter Society, UK
• Beatrix Potter’s World
• Frederick Warne and Company
• Beatrix Potter, A Life in Nature
• Beatrix Potter Tour of the Lake District
• Preschool Resource About Peter Rabbit

Video Related to Beatrix Potter:

• The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny
• The Tale of Samuel Wiskers
• The Tale of Two Bad Mice
• The Tale of Tom Kitten and Jemima Puddle-Duck
• The Tale of Mr. Tod
• Miss Potter Trailer