One of the very few female American Illustrators, Jessie Willcox Smith is considered by many to be the greatest illustrator of children. She is perhaps best known for her work for Good Housekeeping, having painted over 200 covers for the highly popular magazine. The great majority of her covers featured children at play, such as this original oil on panel, which Smith composed for the cover of the November 1919 issue.
The iconic artist’s ability to capture the charm and innocence of childhood is on full display in this work, which features a young child rolling a pumpkin nearly the size of himself. The style of the work is quintessential Smith, exemplifying her remarkable ability to create a narrative from the most subtle details. It was this talent that made her so popular not only a magazine illustrator, but also an illustrator of children's books. In fact, her talent and popularity became so widespread that, by the end of her career, she was also highly sought after as a painter of children's portraits. To find an original version of one of her legendary Good Housekeeping is an exceptional rarity.
Born in 1863 in Philadelphia, Jessie Willcox Smith was, perhaps unsurprisingly, originally trained as a kindergarten teacher. Once she discovered her skill for drawing in her early 20s, she turned to the art of illustration as her future career. She honed her craft at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied under the great American Realist Thomas Eakins. By 1888, she was hired for an entry-level position in the advertising department of the first magazine for women, the Ladies' Home Journal, and thus her career as an illustrator was launched.
She soon began illustrating for publications such as Century, Collier's Weekly, Harper’s Bazaar, Scribner's and Women's Home Companion. From 1918 through 1932, Smith illustrated covers exclusively for Good Housekeeping magazine, the present work among them. She was also highly sought after as an illustrator of children's books, and she created works for titles such as Dickens’ Children, Little Women, At the Back of the North Wind, Boys and Girls of Bookland and Heidi. Idealistic and innocent, her paintings evoke a sense of nostalgia and childhood naïveté that ensures their continued popularity to this day.
