| Jessie Willcox
Smith |
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| Nationality - American |
Profession - Illustrator |
| Date of birth - 08 Sep 1863
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Date of death - 1935 |
| Place of birth
- Philadelphia : Pennsylvania |
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Jessie Willcox Smith was born in Philadelphia in 1863.When she was sixteen, she was sent to Cincinnati to live with cousins and go to school. Her love for children directed her to teaching kindergarten. She never showed any interest in drawing as a child but always had an appreciation for art.
It was not until her cousin invited her to a private art-tutoring class as a chaperone that she stumbled upon her talent. On a whim, she picked up a pencil and proceeded to sketch the lamp that the student was struggling to draw. Upon viewing Jessie?s sketch, her cousin convinced her to give up teaching and attend art school.
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In 1884 Jessie moved back to Philadelphia to enroll in the School of Design for Women. While she excelled in sculpture class, she knew that their drawing and painting programs were lacking.
The next year she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under the militant Thomas Eakins with whom she did not get along with. He was volatile and theatrical and insisted on scientific accuracy. His anatomy class often included the use of cadavers and he had no tolerance for frail women. In spite of it all, Jessie learned much from Eakins about the importance of anatomy. Just before graduation, Jessie received her first professional commission, an illustration for St. Nicholas magazine for children.
Shortly after this Jessie took a position at the Ladies Home Journal in the advertising department doing rough sketches and borders. Eventually her talents were noticed and her illustrations were requested for several advertisements.
Early in her career, she was compared to Kate Greenaway and Maud Humphrey. Wanting desperately to do book illustrations, in 1894 she enrolled in an illustration class at the Drexel Institute being taught by Howard Pyle, America?s most famous illustrator. It was then that her work matured and her children became more realistic looking.
Occasionally, Pyle would arrange with publishers for his best students to illustrate a book. In 1897, Houghton Mifflin published Evangeline which showcased the work of Jessie Willcox Smith and Violet Oakley. Each artist contributed five full-colored and many pen and ink illustrations. Jessie used gouache transparently and pen and ink to achieve a very soft effect.
In 1918, she started to illustrate the cover of Good Housekeeping with images of the American home life. She illustrated a cover each month until April of 1933 for which she got paid $1,800.00 each. The last major book that Jessie illustrated was Heidi by Johanna Spyri in 1922. Fourteen more books followed but they were compilations of the Good Housekeeping covers. Many of these covers were later assembled into books with poems or stories written or found to fit the illustration.
Later in life, she started doing more portrait work. She had a great deal of patience with her young models and encouraged them to play. When she wanted them to keep still she would tell them a lively fairy tale to hold their attention while she painted.
She died on May 3, 1935 after a long illness.
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Jessie Willcox Smith
bibliography - 3
listed |
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