"Mom with Apples, Good Housekeeping Cover"   Lot no. 619

Add to Want List


By Jessie Willcox Smith (American- 1863-1935)

1929
22.00" x 16.00", Framed 32.00" x 26.00"
Mixed Media on Board
Signed Lower Right
SOLD

Click the image above for an additional view.



Cover of Good Housekeeping Magazine, October 1929

Jessie Wilcox Smith was one of the best-known illustrators of the first half of the 20th century.  She excelled in a profession dominated by men, and her pictures of beautiful children won the hearts of millions of Americans.  Between 1918 and 1932, she painted every cover for Good Housekeeping magazine along with several other popular periodicals.   In addition, she illustrated several books, such as the famous Water Babies.

This charming Good Housekeeping cover depicts a beautiful toddler helping his mother put bright red apples in her apron in preparation for making a pie.  Jessie Wilcox Smith’s covers often were removed from  magazines for the purpose of framing and hanging as decoration in the home.



Explore related art collections: Women Artists / Women as Subjects / 1920s / Food / Magazine Covers / Family / Children / Brandywine School / $100,000 & Above

See all original artwork by Jessie Willcox Smith

ABOUT THE ARTIST

            Jessie Wilcox Smith never married, but throughout her long career, specialized in drawing and painting mothers, babies and children. Her training was acquired at the School of Design for Women, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins, and at the Drexel Institute under Howard Pyle.

            She had begun as a kindergarten teacher but turned to an art career with the stimulus and assistance of Howard Pyle. Some of her best-known illustrations were for books: Little Women, Heidi, A book of Old Stories and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. She also painted a great many illustrations for magazines such as Collier's and McClure's, and did nearly 200 covers for Good Housekeeping. For several years, she shared house and studio with two other Pyle students, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley. Working in close proximity they also strongly influenced eachother's work as well as that of several other Pyle - school women. This relationship is told in The Red Rose Girls by Alice Carter. Smith painted and exhibited widely, revieving many awards, a Silver Metal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. She was also commissioned to paint many portraits of children.

            Two other biographies, Jessie Wilcox Smith by S. Michael Schnessel, and Jessie Wilcox Smith American Illustrator by Edward D. Nudelman (who also contributed A bibliography) have been published.