100 Years of Illustration

May Wilson Preston - 2

The next three illustrations are from three instalments of "Seeing France with Uncle John," by Anne Warner, which appeared in Century Magazine for September, October, and November 1906. Click on images to enlarge them.

Note the accurate detail of the bikes and carriage that Preston draws. Not only was she terrific in capturing facial expressions and the actions of individuals, but she could draw inanimate objects with as much skill. In the next post I'll show you how well she did automobiles of the period.

"Mrs. Sparling spent two glorious days getting the cottage ready," from Scribner's Monthly Magazine for November 1907. Great handling of carbon pencil and wash. Click on image to enlarge.

Back to pen-and-ink with a second color overlay for effect. "You just pick words out of the air, don't you?" from Scribner's Monthly Magazine for January 1910. Click on image to enlarge.

"Butter 'n' eggs! Butter 'n' eggs!" from "The Dollivers Caught 'Napping" in Harper's Monthly Magazine for August 1812. Click on image to enlarge.

"Where's our Butter 'n' eggs?" from "The Dollivers Caught 'Napping" in Harper's Monthly Magazine for August 1812. Preston has few equals as a humorous illustrator. Click on image to enlarge.

May Wilson Preston, aka May Wilson-Watkins in 1903 and 1904

I think you're in for a treat if you will be discovering May Wilson for the first time. She was a wonderful illustrator and extremely popular as well as wildly successful in her time. I have samples of her work in all three of the most prestigious monthly magazines of her early days: Century, Harper' and Scribner's.

May was born as Mary Wilson in New York in 1873. (May was a nickname for Mary very popular at the time.) She studied art at Oberlin College, OH and after graduation, at the Art Students League in NYC under Robert Henri -- as did my mentor, Harold Irving Smith -- and John Sloan.

She was a participant in the struggle for women's rights and challenged her right as a female student to attend life drawing classes. This was a young woman with great strength of character as well as an abundance of talent.

Click on each of the following images for an enlarged view.

The earliest sample of her work that I have is from an issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine for September of 1903. The article is entitled "Hunting for an Apartment" by May Isabel Fisk in a section of the publication called Editor's Drawer. The caption reads,"We are just pretending to be married." The character on the left seems to be clumsily drawn—note the bad hands and broken legs—whereas the young couple and their dog are extremely well done and not noticeably dated for that period.

This is the only other example of her work that I have where she is May Wilson-Watkins. I have no idea whether she was using a hyphenated name in the style of Europeans after her days of study in Paris with the famous James Whistler, or that it is a married name.

From Scribner's Monthly Magazine for January 1904.

May Wilson-Watkins is now credited as May Wilson Preston in Scribner's Monthly Magazine for August 1904. The author was a social activist in his time and this is a humorous story about an anarchistic parrot.

May Wilson or May Wilson-Watkins married the artist, James Moore Preston. Each was a member of the Ash Can School and exhibited at the famous Armory Show of 1913 that took place in New York City.

These illustrations were done in much the same style as her husband's work shown here in the center image.

By 1910, May Wilson's work became much brighter and more mainstream and we will go there with further examples in the next batch of uploads.

From an article in Scribner's Monthly Magazine January 1910.

N.C. Wyeth - 4

Wyeth's style and subject matter was all over the place, as seen in the following examples from work he did in Harper's Monthly Magazine. I wonder about his editors at the magazine and what they were thinking. His great talent and technical ability seems often misplaced. Click on images to enlarge.

May 1914, from The Tobacco Famine at Tamarac. The caption reads: "Looking longingly into the gray eyes of Peachy the Unattainable."

May 1916, from monthly installments of Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. "Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys." Was the author's heavy hand the problem with these?

June 1916, from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. "The lightning blazed out flash upon flash and set the castle on fire."

July 1916, from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. "On the fourth day comes the astrologer from his crumbling old tower."

August 1916, from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. "Marget was cheerful by help of Wilhelm Meidling."

September 1916, from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger."The astrologer emptied the whole of the bowl into the bottle." Those are bad faces in a bad layout, clumsily rendered.

October 1916, from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. "There was sound of tramping outside and the crowd came solemnly in."

July 1916, from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. "Life itself is only a vision, a dream."

November 1911, and so much better. From Growing Up by Gouveneur Morris. "The children were playing at marriage-by-capture."

November 1911. From Growing Up by Gouveneur Morris. "Nothing would escape their black, jewel-like, inscrutable eyes."

From December 1913, the following two examples done in a serious, painterly style and with captions set in black letter gothic.

"Come live with us for I think thou are chosen."

"Whe He comes He will rule over the whole world."

N.C. Wyeth - 3

Most, if not all illustrators are rarely happy with what happens to their art after the work goes into production. In the following pieces we see the results of some sloppy handling of N.C. Wyeth's monumental paintings. Certainly they were large. He painted big, and in oils—for the most part. It couldn't have been a piece of cake for the guys working the large process cameras that it would have been necessary to use in those days. Shooting high quality color positive film wouldn't be possible for many decades.

Then there's the printing, cheap paper, terrible register of the four-color presses.
Here they are, in lieu of someone finding the originals down in Chadds Ford and creating some state-of-the-art separations. It's good stuff and well worth preserving for posterity. Click on images to enlarge.

They're all from Scribner's Monthly Magazine from 1909 through 1911.

The War Clouds, March 1909.

Illustrations for poems by George T. Marsh. The line drawing is not Wyeth's. That illustrator was Franklin Booth. December 1909.

Spring.

Summer.

Autumn.

Winter.

The Pay-stage, August 1910.

"It was hard to remember that he was only the wandering leader of an Arab caravan." January 1911.