GREENAWAY, KATE (1846-1901), English artist and book illustrator, was
the daughter of John Greenaway, a well-known draughtsman and engraver on
wood, and was born in London on the 17th of March 1846. After a course
of study at South Kensington, at "Heatherley's" life classes, and at the
Slade School, Kate Greenaway began, in 1868, to exhibit water-colour
drawings at the Dudley Gallery, London. Her more remarkable early work,
however, consisted of Christmas cards, which, by reason of their quaint
beauty of design and charm of draughtsmanship, enjoyed an extraordinary
vogue. Her subjects were, in the main, young girls, children, flowers,
and landscape; and the air of artless simplicity, freshness, humour, and
purity of these little works so appealed to public and artists alike
that the enthusiastic welcome habitually accorded to them is to be
attributed to something more than love of novelty. In the line she had
struck out Kate Greenaway was encouraged by H. Stacy Marks, R.A., and
she refused to listen to those friends who urged her to return to a more
conventional manner. Thenceforward her illustrations for children (such
as for _Little Folks_, 1873, _et seq._) attracted much attention. In
1877 her drawings at the Dudley Gallery were sold for L54, and her Royal
Academy picture for eighteen guineas; and in the same year she began to
draw for the _Illustrated London News_. In the year 1879 she produced
_Under the Window_, of which 150,000 copies are said to have been sold,
and of which French and German editions were also issued. Then followed
_The Birthday Book_, _Mother Goose_, _Little Ann_, and other books for
children which were appreciated not less by adults, and were to be found
on sale in the bookshops of every capital in Europe and in the cities of
America. The extraordinary success achieved by the young girl may be
estimated by the amounts paid to her as her share of the profits: for
_Under the Window_ she received L1130; for _The Birthday Book_, L1250;
for _Mother Goose_, L905; and for _Little Ann_, L567. These four books
alone produced a clear return of L8000. "Toy-books" though they were,
these little works created a revolution in illustration, and so were of
real importance; they were loudly applauded by John Ruskin (_Art of
England_ and _Fors Clavigera_), by Ernest Chesneau and Arsene Alexandre
in France, by Dr Muther in Germany, and by leading art-critics
throughout the world. In 1890 Kate Greenaway was elected a member of the
Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and in 1891, 1894 and 1898
she exhibited water-colour drawings, including illustrations for her
books, at the gallery of the Fine Art Society (by which a representative
selection was exhibited in 1902), where they surprised the world by the
infinite delicacy, tenderness, and grace which they displayed. A leading
feature in Miss Greenaway's work was her revival of the delightfully
quaint costume of the beginning of the 19th century; this lent humour to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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