Smith, Jessie Willcox

▪ American painter and illustrator

born September 8, 1863, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

died May 3, 1935, Philadelphia

      American artist best remembered for her illustrations, often featuring children, for numerous popular magazines, advertising campaigns, and children's books.

      At age 16 Smith entered the School of Design for Women in Philadelphia, and from 1885 to 1888 she studied with Thomas Eakins (Eakins, Thomas) at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, also in Philadelphia. She had already sold a few drawings to St. Nicholas magazine when in 1894 she enrolled in a class in illustration conducted by Howard Pyle (Pyle, Howard) at the Drexel Institute of Arts and Sciences (now Drexel University) in Philadelphia. She attended informal classes at Pyle's studio and his private school in Wilmington, Delaware, and through him she received her first commissions, to illustrate two books about Native Americans. In 1897, with her friend and fellow student Violet Oakley, she illustrated an edition of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth)'s Evangeline (1847).

      Smith earned national attention with her bronze-medal-winning exhibit at the Charleston (South Carolina) Exposition in 1902. In 1903 she and another friend, Elizabeth Shippen Green, produced a highly popular illustrated calendar entitled The Child. From that time onward, Smith received a steady flow of commissions.

      Her illustrations, particularly of children, appeared regularly in such magazines as Ladies' Home Journal, Scribner's, and Harper's. For many years she regularly contributed cover illustrations to Good Housekeeping, and she illustrated a number of children's books.

Additional Reading

S. Michael Schnessel, Jessie Willcox Smith (1977).

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