Jessie+Willcox+Smith+(1863-1935)

Closely identified with juvenile portraits and interpretations of child life, the Philadelphian Jessie Willcox Smith fell rather accidentally upon her vocation. Following her natural attraction for and interest in children, she was studying to become a kindergarten teacher. In the days when propriety was rigorously observed, she agreed to join, as chaperone, a drawing class being given by a female friend at a local boys' school. When her impromptu sketches revealed startling promise, she transferred to the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, where she studied with Eakins.

Later she worked at the Drexel Institute under the exacting Howard Pyle, who exerted a considerable influence on her style and through whom she secured her first book illustration assignment. Her idealized, romanticized pictures of children and flowers were soon in constant demand for cover and calendar designs, advertisements, and stories from such widely circulating publications as Scribner's, Harper's, Collier's, St Nicholas, Ladies' Home Journal and Good Housekeeping. Of her illustrations for children's classics, those for The Water Babies are considered among her finest.

'He felt how comfortable it was to have nothing on him but himself'
The Water Babies HODDER & STOUGHTON 1919

'Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby'
The Water Babies HODDER & STOUGHTON 1919