Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
American, 1863-1935
But success as an illustrator wasn't immediate. She got a job in the production department of The Ladies Home Journal in 1889 and was still working there five years later when Howard Pyle began teaching illustration at Drexel Institute of Arts and Sciences. Smith was accepted as a pupil in his first class. At 31, she was only 10 years younger than her teacher and one of his oldest students. Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley soon joined her in the class, and the three became lifelong friends. Smith's first commission through Pyle was for an 1897 edition of Evangeline that she illustrated with Oakley. The two joined another Pyle student to rent a studio, and Green later joined them there. In 1901, the three shared the lease on an old inn outside of Philadelphia. That's the same year as the illustration above from "The Last of the Fairy Wands" in the December issue of Scribners Magazine. She produced two calendars with Green for 1902 that helped establish the careers of both women. The most important was "The Child," which showcased some of her most sensitive renditions of children to date. The images were collected into a book the following year. One of Smith's three images from that book is above at right. The magazines and books of the day voraciously consumed as much color work as possible. Pyle's students were some of the best-prepared new entrants into the illustration market, and Pyle's name gave them access to the magazines' pages.to
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Artist: Jessie Willcox Smith
"I'm going to play with the little girl, mother" for the book In the Closed Room
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Story illustration for the book In the Closed Room by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published by McClure, Phillips & Co., New York, 1904.
The published caption reads: "I'm going to play ...
Category
Early 1900s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor, Pen
Merry Christmas
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Mixed Media on Paperboard
Signature: Unsigned
This piece was an advertisement for Lowney's Crest Chocolates. Edward Nudelman, Jessie Willcox Smith expert and biographer describes Merry Christmas: Two Children Before the Fireplace, “A wonderful mixed media painting by Jessie Willcox Smith, published as an advertisement for Lowney's Crest Chocolates, reminiscent of her paintings for Twas the Night...
Category
20th Century Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Mixed Media, Board
Mother and Child, Golden Age of Illustration
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Miami, FL
America's greatest female illustrator draws a heartwarming picture of a mother putting to bed her child. Motherly love towards their children is the artist's most iconic theme. This ...
Category
Early 1900s Art Nouveau Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink, Illustration Board, Pen
Rhymes of Real Children
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1903
Medium: Mixed Media on Board
Sight Size 18.00" x 15.75", Framed 24.50" x 22.25"
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Betty Sage, Rhymes of Real Children, New York, 1903, illustr...
Category
Early 1900s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Mixed Media, Board
The Pink Bonnet
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1907
Medium: Mixed Media on Board
Dimensions: 18.25" x 15.25"
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Provenance- From the Helen Hay Whitney estate (the author of The Bed-Time Book for ...
Category
Early 1900s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Mixed Media, Board
Pair of Illustrations from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Two illustrations from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses (New York: Scribner's, 1905), for III: "To Auntie", Page 116
Two charming line illustrations by Smith from...
Category
Early 1900s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Ink, Pencil
Portrait of Seated Girl
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Charcoal on Paper
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Category
20th Century Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Charcoal
"Where nothing was seen but the Quaker gown."
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Story illustration for Reminiscences of The Old Chest of Drawers by Sarah Cauffman Sill (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1900), page 10
Medium: Charcoal on Paper
Signature: Signed Lo...
Category
20th Century Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Charcoal
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
...
Category
Early 1900s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Mixed Media
Water Babies- Sitting on a Leaf
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Ink and Watercolor on Paper
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Contact for exact dimensions.
Inscribed Signed for-/Thomas Oakley/CHRISTMAS-1919 (lower right)
-
Charles Kingsle...
Category
20th Century Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Ink, Watercolor
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 Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Ink, Pen
Water Babies Illustration- Tadpoles
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Ink and Watercolor on Paper
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Contact for exact dimensions.
Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies, New York, 1916, illustrated
Edward D. Nudelman,...
Category
1910s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Ink, Watercolor
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 Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink, Gouache, Board
Water Babies- Sitting on a Leaf
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Ink and Watercolor on Paper
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Contact for exact dimensions.
LITERATURE:
Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies, New York, 1916, illustrated
Edwar...
Category
1910s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Ink, Watercolor
Pease-Porridge Hot, Pease-Porridge Cold
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Mixed Media on Paperboard
Signature: Signed Lower Right
This mixed media art by Jesssie Willcox Smith, entitled “Pease-Porridge Hot, Pease-Porridge Cold,” was executed in 19...
Category
1910s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Mixed Media, Board
Price Upon Request
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Previously Available Items
"I'm going to play with the little girl, mother" for the book In the Closed Room
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Story illustration for the book In the Closed Room by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published by McClure, Phillips & Co., New York, 1904.
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Early 1900s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
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Water Babies Illustration
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Ink and Watercolor on Paper
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Contact for exact dimensions.
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20th Century Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
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A Rose by Any Other Name
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Mixed Media on Board
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Good Housekeeping, June 1924, illustrated in color on the cover
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1920s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
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Three School Children
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Pen and Ink on Board
Signature: Initialed Lower Right
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20th Century Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
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Children Playing in the Snow
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1931
Medium: Mixed Media on Board
Dimensions: 20.00" x 16.00"
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Inscribed verso: For Tille Anne who would be a perfect model for her / Mothers friend / Jessie Wilcox Smith...
Category
1930s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Mixed Media, Board
Season Greeting
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Ink, Paint and Gold Leaf on Paper
Dimensions: 11.75" x 8.50"
Signature: Unsigned
Category
Late 19th Century Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Gold Leaf
Young Woman Gazing
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Approximate Date: 1900
Medium: Charcoal and Wash
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Dimensions: 15.00" x 9.75"
Story Illustration "The Emigrant East", by...
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Early 1900s Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
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Charcoal
Man Kneeling to Woman in Flounced Dress
By Jessie Willcox Smith
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Approximate Date: 1926
Medium: Charcoal, Watercolor and Oil on Board
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Size: 25.75" x 16.00"
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Jessie Willcox Smith drawings and watercolor paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Jessie Willcox Smith drawings and watercolor paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Jessie Willcox Smith in board, mixed media, charcoal and more. Not every interior allows for large Jessie Willcox Smith drawings and watercolor paintings, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Frank Wilcox, Grace G. Drayton, and Abraham Walkowitz. Jessie Willcox Smith drawings and watercolor paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $22,000 and tops out at $265,000, while the average work can sell for $115,000.
Artists Similar to Jessie Willcox Smith
Questions About Jessie Willcox Smith Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
- 1stDibs ExpertJanuary 10, 2025The most famous book that Jessie Willcox Smith illustrated is arguably Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. However, the American artist also produced illustrations for numerous other books. Among them were A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, The Seven Ages of Childhood by Carolyn Wells, The Rhymes of Real Children by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and An Old-Fashioned Girl, also by Louisa May Alcott. Explore a range of Jessie Willcox Smith art on 1stDibs.