The English illustrator Kate Greenaway dramatically changed the art of the picture book. For many modern critics, her work represents the essence of a Victorian childhood.
Background
She was born on March 17, 1846, in Hoxton, a community in what is now Greater London, England. "I had such a very happy time when I was a child, " Greenaway is reported as saying in M. H. Spielmann and G. S. Lanyard's 1905 biography Kate Greenaway, "and, curiously, was so very much happier then than my brother and sister, with exactly the same surroundings. I suppose my imaginary life made me one long continuous joy-filled everything with a strange wonder and beauty. Living in that childish wonder is a most beautiful feeling-I can so well remember it. There was always something more-behind and beyond everything-to me. The golden spectacles were very very big. "
"A strong bond existed between father and daughter, " Bryan Holme reports. "He had nicknamed her 'Knocker' because when she cried her face used to look like one-or so he had teasingly told her. As soon as Kate's fingers had strength enough to hold pencil, John Greenaway had encouraged her to draw-and this he continued to do up to and through her student years. "
Education
As a young child Kate was educated at home and sent to series of dame schools. When she was about 12 she began formal art education when she enrolled in the National Course of Art instruction, first at Finsbury School of Art and later at the South Kensington School of Art headed by Richard Burchett. She completed the five stages of ornamental courses in one year and the ten stages of the drawing courses with similar speed. In 1864, she completed the final course, "Elementary Design", winning a national bronze medal for her designs. Later awards included a national silver medal in 1869 for a set of geometric and floral decorative tiles that "display charming harmonies of colour", according to biographer M. H. Spielmann.
She later attended the Royal Female School of Art. With classmate Elizabeth Thompson, Greenaway augmented her studies by learning to draw from the nude. The two young women rented a studio in South Kensington for a year for the purpose. At the school she did have the opportunity to work from models dressed in historical or ornamental costumes, skills she applied during the summers in Rolleston. But she continued to be frustrated that nude models were not permitted in the women's classes, so enrolled in night classes at Heatherley School of Fine Art where she met Edward Burne-Jones, Edward Poynter and Walter Crane. In 1871 she enrolled in the Slade School of Fine Art.
Career
Greenaway's largest influence on her art work came from the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which was formed in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Many of her early cards and valentines, such as those that appeared in The Quiver of Love: A Collection of Valentines (1876) show the Pre-Raphaelite influence on her work. John Ruskin, the first British art critic to recognize the contributions of the Pre-Raphaelites, later became a close friend of Greenaway. Their correspondence continued until the critic's death in 1900.
Much of Greenaway's earliest work appeared in the publications of Marcus Ward & Company, which published her art work on their cards, calendars, and books. "Over the years, " writes Holme, "hitherto unknown books containing one or more Greenaway illustrations have turned up in the rare-book market. " Her "earliest free-lance work also included odd jobs for Messrs. Kronheim and Company, the giant color printers of Shoe Lane, " the critic continues. The Kronheim connection led to the publication of her first illustrated book: Diamonds and Toads (1871). "This slim paper-bound volume, a popular little tale pointing to the moral that 'cross words are as bad dropped from the mouth as toads and vipers, while gentle words are better than roses and diamonds' was printed by Kronheim, " Holme concludes, "and destined to number in Aunt Louisa's London Toy Book Series under the imprint of Frederick Warne and Company. " Other books featuring Greenaway illustrations published in the early 1870s included The Children of the Parsonage, Fairy Gifts; or, A Wallet of Wonders, and Topo.
The artist's aspirations, however, went beyond simply illustrating books written by other people. "Greenaway's ambition was to publish a book of her own verses and drawings based on her memories of Rolleston, street rhymes, and favorite childhood stories, " explains Anne H. Lundin. "She dressed her characters in the old-fashioned clothing so common in Rolleston: high-waisted gowns, smocks, and mobcaps. She accompanied these drawings with her own verse, based on nursery-rhyme morals and make-believe. " Her father, John Greenaway, shared the unfinished manuscript with a colleague named Edmund Evans. Evans was "a pioneer color printer who had already created successful productions of Walter Crane's toy books and had recently engaged Randolph Caldecott for a similar series, " states Lundin. The volume that Evans published became the first and most popular of Greenaway's books, Under the Window: Pictures and Rhymes for Children. Evans's original printing of 20, 000 copies quickly sold out and Evans had to print another 50, 000 to satisfy the demand for the book. One-third of the profits went to Greenaway. The sales made her comfortably well-off, if not wealthy, and her name became familiar in households throughout the British Empire and the United States. "Throughout the 1890s Under the Window was listed as a perennial seller, " says Lundin, "along with Greenaway's three other most popular works: Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book for Children (1880), Mother Goose; or, The Old Nursery Rhymes (1881), and A Painting Book (1884). "
These four books marked the pinnacle of Greenaway's critical and commercial success. However, her reputation was further spread by a series of yearly almanacs, published first by Routledge and later by Dent. "The almanacs were booklets with variant bindings that contained monthly calendars and in which the surprise from year to year was in Greenaway's choice of decorations for the seasons, " writes Lundin. Their sales were more erratic than those of Greenaway's major books-except in the United States, Lundin says, where "the almanacs had a greater following … with sales often twice that of the British market. " The Almanack for 1883, the best-selling of her collection, sold 90, 000 copies throughout Great Britain, the United States, France, and Germany. The almanacs appeared yearly from 1882 to 1895; the publisher skipped 1896, and the last of Greenaway's almanacs was published in 1897.
These almanacs and Greenaway's other publications brought out a "Greenaway Vogue" that began shortly after the publication of Under the Window and continued for some time. "Numerous imitations, piracies, and spinoffs were produced without her permission, an onslaught that popularized her name by adversely affected her livelihood and stature, " says Lundin. Even clothing styled after the patterns she had developed in her illustrations was created.
Although Greenaway maintained her reputation throughout the late nineteenth century, by the dawn of the twentieth century her popularity began to wane. Despite the loss of her parents and her friend John Ruskin, she never lost the dedication that characterized her earliest work. However, by early 1901 Greenaway was complaining of chronic pain, which was diagnosed as "acute muscular rheumatism, " but which modern critics believe was actually breast cancer. She died on November 6, 1901, and was buried in her family's plot at Hampstead cemetery.
Views
Quotations:
"How different everything is when you are with the right people!"
"A woman once said to me, 'Any religion that is to be any good to one must be one they make for themselves, ' - and it is so. She, curiously, was a clergyman's wife. "
"Things are so beautiful and wonderful, you feel there must be another life where you will see more - hear more - and know more. All of it cannot die. "
"I have made it a rule for a long time, not to part with the copyright of my drawings, for I have been so copied, my drawings reproduced and sold for advertisements and done in ways I hate. "
"Everyone seems possessed with the desire of writing articles upon me and sends me long lists of all I am to say. "
Membership
Greenaway was elected to membership of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1889.