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<HEAD><TITLE>Jessie Wilcox Smith Biography</TITLE>
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<FONT COLOR="#00000" SIZE="2" FACE="HELVETICA,ARIAL"> <B><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Jessie
Willcox Smith (1863-1935)</font></b><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
was among the most gifted of the students of Howard Pyle, and she took
to heart his precept of (loosely put) studying a particular subject thoroughly,
and conversely, painting what one knows best in order to bring the subject
alive. Quite early, she settled on exploring the universe of the child,
and did so with great sensitivity and tenderness over the first 30 years
of this century.<BR>
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Her mature work in no way resembles her teacher's, but bears more affinity
to that of Edward Penfield and Toulouse-Lautrec and other poster artists,
echoing the contemporary graphic approach with its emphasis on a spare
but expressive charcoal line, somewhere between the fluidity of Art Nouveau
and the boxiness of the Arts & Crafts movement. This style, together
with excellent draughtsmanship, and her strongly designed compositions,
(often unusual because of their view from the child's perspective) inspired
a school of followers. Smith worked most comfortably with charcoal, often
adding watercolor washes, occasionally varnishing over the drawing to
add highlights in oil.<BR>
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Smith was a prolific book illustrator, and remarkably, many of these beautiful
volumes are in print today, probably bought as much for adults' nostalgia
as for their relevance to children. Her magazine covers, given little
attention by her bibliographer Edward Nudelman, are no less important.
Like her illustrations of verse, they tend to depict quintessential moments
of childhood: playing with blocks, fear of the dark, etc., so they function
quite well as pictures apart from their original connection with text.
Through her pictures of children, whether illustrations for fairy tales
or of simple domestic scenes, Smith changed and enlarged the appreciation
of children in American popular culture by her enormously sympathetic
portrayals. <BR>
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- Roger T. Reed <BR>
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<B>[Book cover: <I>The Bed-Time Book</I>, by Helen Hay Whitney, 1907;<BR>
charcoal, watercolor on board, 18 x 15"]</B></font>
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