Trailblazing Gay Female illustrator of the Golden Age, Ida Waugh, paints a powerful narrative of a young woman coming to the aid of another who, due to an accident, is lying prostrate in an unpaved road. The reason why the work is in black and white
is because this was assignment art for a book or magazine and color printing was not yet available for mass publications Signed lower left. Framed under glass,
Ida Waugh (October 24, 1846 – January 25, 1919) was an American illustrator of children's literature who often collaborated with her lifelong companion, Amy Ella Blanchard.
Personal life
Ida Waugh was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 24, 1846, the daughter of painter Samuel B. Waugh and his first wife, Sarah Mendenhall, therefore she was half-sister of painter Frederick Judd Waugh. Her step-mother was Mary Eliza Young Waugh, a miniaturist.
She attended Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris, studying with Georges Callot, Paul-Louis Delance, and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.In 1868 she attended the first "Ladies Life Class" at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; in the same class there were Emily Sartain and Catherine Ann Drinker.
Career
Ida Waugh collaborated with her partner Amy Ella Blanchard in publishing children's books, Waugh as illustrator and Blanchard as writer. Waugh also published books on her own
Other than a children's book illustrator, Waugh was an award-winning painter. In 1869 she exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts two works, "The Bargain" and a portrait bust of Carl Gaertner.
Her self-portrait and another painting, "Little Cosette" (1870), are in the permanent collection of the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, both donated by Mrs. John S. Haug in 1961.They were part of the exhibition "Women and Biography" in 2014, including: Elizabeth Shippen Green, Violet Oakley, Edith Emerson, Anne Minich, Catherine Mulligan, Mitzi Melnicoff, Alice Kent Stoddard, Aubrey Levinthal, Martha Armstrong...
Category
1890s Portrait Paintings
MaterialsOil, Illustration Board