| Cicely Mary
Barker |
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| Nationality - English |
Profession - Illustrator |
| Date of birth - 28 Jun 1895
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Date of death - 1973 |
| Place of birth
- Croydon, South London : |
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Cicely Mary Barker was born June 28, 1895 in Croydon, South London.
As a child she suffered from epilepsy and therefore her family saw it best that she be educated at home - it was in the family drawing-room that she spent hours drawing flowers and fairies from her imagination.
As a child she was greatly influenced by the works of the illustrator Kate Greenaway, whom she assiduously copied in her formative years. Her principle influence, however, which she duly credited, was the artwork of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Her father was an amateur artist and highly supportive of her love of painting. However, following his early death in 1912, she had to help to support the rest of her family through the sale of her poetry and illustrations to magazines and postcard companies.
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It was her 'Flower Fairies' books that brought Cicely Mary Barker her greatest popular acclaim. Like the Pre-Raphaelite painters whom she so much admired, she believed in recreating the beauty of nature in art and in drawing from life subjects. Her plants and flowers were observed with complete botanical accuracy and in the fairies themselves she captured perfectly the unselfconscious grace of children, whom she used to sketch in her sister's school.
Despite her great success, Cicely remained a quiet and modest figure and retained her involvement with the Croydon School of Art, where she began to teach. She spent her later life in Sussex.
Cicely Mary Barker died in Worthing Hospital on February 16, 1973. |
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Cicely Mary Barker
bibliography - 23
listed |
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