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Jessie Willcox Smith
Boy Playing Dress-Up, Story Illustration

$19,000
£14,378.10
€16,582.46
CA$26,532.19
A$29,724.62
CHF 15,471.64
MX$361,988.94
NOK 197,088.01
SEK 185,601.29
DKK 123,785.93
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About the Item

"He surveyed himself with satisfaction." Illustration for An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott, published in 1902 by Little, Brown, & Company Smith, Jessie Willcox: Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1863 to an affluent family, Jessie Willcox Smith attended private schools in that city, as well as in Cincinnati, Ohio. At age 20, she went to work as a kindergarten teacher but soon learned that she could not handle the stress of dealing with small children. On a suggestion from one of her cousins, Smith took art classes, first at the School of Design for Women, then at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Later, Smith went on to study at Drexel University. It was at that school she became good friends with two other artists, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley. The trio dubbed themselves "The Red Rose Girls," taking the name from the inn where they lived. Smith's art work appeared in magazines, books and calendars. Soon she was sought out to do illustrations for ads for Ivory Soap, Kodak and Quaker. In 1915, Smith not only signed a contract as the cover illustrator for Good Housekeeping magazine, she also did one of her most famous pieces, Charles Kingsley's "The Water-Babies." Smith's art work appeared in such periodicals as Ladies Home Journal, Harper's, Century and Leslie's Weekly. She also did illustrations for Little Red Riding Hood and the cover for Heidi. Smith passed away in 1935 at the age of 71. Fifty-six years later, she was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, just the second woman to be so honored at the time.
  • Creator:
    Jessie Willcox Smith (1863 - 1935, American)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 24 in (60.96 cm)Width: 16 in (40.64 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Fort Washington, PA
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: 27251stDibs: LU38431140903

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Alcott's Old Fashioned Girl
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Located in Fort Washington, PA
"'I choose this,' said Polly, holding up a long white kid glove, shrunken and yellow with time, but looking as if it had a history." Illustration for An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa...
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Woman's Home Companion Magazine Cover
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1912 Medium: Oil on Canvas Sight Size 18.50" x 12.50", Framed 27.50" x 21.50" Signature: Signed Lower Left July 1912 Woman's Home Companion Magazine Cover
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1910s Portrait Paintings

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As a Special Privilege the Zealot Bore it in Blazing
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1903 Medium: Mixed Media on Paper Sight Size 24.25" x 15.50", Framed 31.35" x 22.50" Signature: Signed Lower Left Scribner's Magazine story illustration, November 1911, 1903 ...
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Early 1900s Mixed Media

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Introducing Heidi
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
"Introducing Heidi." Original illustration for page 11 of "Heidi" by Johanna Spyri (Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1922). Charcoal and watercolor on board. 10 1/2x8 inches, on 20x15-inch board. Unsigned but captioned "Chapter I" in lower margin with publisher's label on verso. an original drawing from smith's final fully-illustrated work. Heidi was "a perfect showcase for Smith's illustrative art...
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1920s Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

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Exhibition Announcement
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signature: Signed with the Artist's Initials J.W.S. (Lower Right) Medium: Ink and Gouache on Paperboard
Category

20th Century Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

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Boy with Pull Toy
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Pen and Ink on Paper Signature: Signed Lower Right Line drawing illustration from Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" (New York: Scribner's, 1905). A char...
Category

20th Century Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

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Anna Milo Upjohn was an overlooked female illustrator in the school of Jessie Willcox Smith. Her work displays a deep academic knowledge evident in her stylized illustrations of children and engaging their world. Signed lower right- 'A.M.UPJOHN" unframed. She was an assignment artist for renowned women's publications such as The Woman's Home Companion and children's books, as well as commercial assignments.s for the Red Cross. Unframed Anna Milo Upjohn (1868–1951) was an American artist, illustrator, author, and relief worker who, late in her long career, became known for paintings, drawings, and illustrations she made for the American Red Cross. After graduating from high school, she studied art briefly in New York but obtained most of her training in Paris from Claudio Castelucho and Lucien Simon.[1] In the early years of the twentieth century, she became known both for her portraits and paintings of children and for her book and magazine illustrations. Finding herself in France at the outset of the First World War, she devoted herself to relief work first among the refugees in Paris and later among the devastated villages in France and Belgium. Having spent the first half of her adult life as an independent professional, she served as a staff artist for the American Red Cross between 1921 and 1931. She traveled extensively during her adult life and lived mostly in New York City; Ithaca, New York; and Washington, D.C. Early life and training During the 1870s, Upjohn's family lived with her grandfather, a well-known architect named Richard Upjohn who had retired to a scenic home in Garrison, New York. Richard Upjohn's biographer says when she was about five she would accompany him as he sketched and painted. She questioned him about his color choices and learned that artists often chose colors different from the ones present in the subjects they painted. He also showed her engravings of famous paintings, explaining what made them great and where they fell short in his view.[2] Her family was living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin when she graduated from high school in 1887.[3] A few years later, the family moved to New York, where, in the early 1890s, she took classes at the Cooper Union Woman's Art School.[4] She began her foreign travels in 1893 and during the next few years studied art in Munich, Florence, and Paris.[5] In 1902, she took an illustration class at the National Academy of Design and the following year won the Academy's Suydam silver medal for her work.[6] Between 1909 and 1912, she studied and traveled in Europe's other major cities.[7] In 1922, Upjohn told a reporter that she had studied art "in many places, usually for a few months at a time and disconnectedly, but what counted most was the work she did in Paris under Castelucho and Lucien Simon.”[1] Born in Barcelona, Castelucho's birth name was Claudi Catelucho Diana, but he went by his surname alone. In Paris during the early years of the twentieth century, he and Simon both trained private students and both taught at two mondernist alternatives to the École des Beaux Arts: the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.[8] Upjohn did not say whether she took private lessons, classes, or both. Career in art Image No. 1, Anna Milo Upjohn, Young Boy Going Fishing, 1910, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches In 1890, at the age of twenty-one, Upjohn completed a painting of angels for St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Her uncle Richard M. Upjohn had designed the building and her father was currently its rector (having succeeded John Henry Hobart Brown...
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