Barbara Briggs Bradley

Children's Book Cover - Mid-Century Blond Girl - Female Illustrator

1954

When the Wood Grows Dry "Good House Keeping Magazine" illustration Surreal depiction of a young mid-century girls social life Good House Keeping Magazi...

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...

This work is meticulously and brilliantly rendered to capture not only the likeness of the sitter but spirit as well. The image is pushed to the forefront of the composition and s...

This impeccably rendered mid-century double portrait of a quarreling man and woman exhibits a supreme academic training knowledge lost in almost all contemporary art. It features an ...

Primary Hughes' (US based) "Red" is an original, handmade gouache painting that depicts a female model in three quarters view with red hair.

Woman's Face is an original painting artwork in mixed media on paper realized by the Greek-French artist Alkis Matheos . Very good conditions. Signed by the artist's stamp on the r...

John William Godward 1861-1922 British A Pompeian Lady Signed and dated "J.W. Godward 1904" (lower right, partially covered by frame) Oil on canvas One of the last and greatest Victorian neoclassical painters, John William Godward is celebrated for his flawlessly executed images of graceful women posed in idealized ancient settings. In this work, entitled A Pompeian Lady, a classical beauty is caught idling in a moment of quiet, solitary reflection. Godward's elegant subjects are depicted with a degree of technical mastery that remains unsurpassed, and the work's dramatic palette, luxurious fabrics and classical vision are all characteristics of his unique take on the neoclassical style. Godward was unmatched in terms of his technical skill and attention to detail. A master of contrasting textures, he paints a diaphanous gown draping against the model’s smooth, milky white skin, which sits against the painstakingly rendered individual hairs of a tiger’s pel. Scintillating color permeates the canvas as well, energizing the otherwise static scene. Each element is given careful attention, and the overall effect is one of both immaculate technique and sensual tactility. Along with his contemporary and mentor, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Godward set the tone for the Victorian neoclassicist movement. He built his career upon creating images of idealized feminine beauty infused with a Greco-Roman-inspired style. Though greatly influenced by Alma-Tadema, Godward distinguished himself through his predilection for the solitary female figure. His fame rose dramatically in the first few years of the 20th century, when the present work was completed, due to the burgeoning strength of the British Empire and the Victorian society’s preoccupation with ancient Rome. To many of the newly affluent, Roman society was, as Iain Gale writes, “a flawless mirror of their own immaculate world.” The sensuality and mystery of Godward’s maidens, combined with his impressive antique backdrops...

Elizabeth Zanzinger's (US based) "Prism" is an oil painting that depicts a woman in the foreground looking into the distance with an atmospheric su...