Rose Cecil O’Neill

Born this day in 1874: Rose Cecil O’Neill (1874–1944), magazine illustrator, writer, and businesswoman who created the Kewpies.

O’Neill was a popular magazine illustrator. Her greatest fame, however—and most of her wealth—came from the creation of the enormously popular Kewpies. Kewpies began as illustrations in the Ladies’ Home Journal. In a blaze of merchandizing Kewpies subsequently appeared as items such as figurines, salt and pepper shakers, inkwells, and on fabric, greeting cards, stationery, and, of course, as dolls. Kewpie dolls were first manufactured in 1913 and netted O’Neill royalties of $1.5 million. The wealth from marketing Kewpies allowed O’Neill to indulge in more serious (and much darker) art, including monumental sculpture, painting, and novel and poetry writing.

Various manufacturers have been churning out Kewpie dolls almost continuously since 1913.

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Anna Vaughn Hyatt

Born this day in 1876: Anna Vaughn Hyatt (1876–1973), largely self-taught sculptor and one of the greatest sculptors of the 20^th Century. 

Hyatt was a prolific artist who held her first solo exhibition at age 24. She is renown for the great accuracy and subtlety she brought to classic animal and equestrian works. Her works appear in more than 200 museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as public venues and private collections in the U.S. and abroad. She is the recipient of a gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1930).

Selma Burke

Born this day in 1900: Selma Burke (1900–1995), sculptor

Burke was born in Moorseville, North Carolina. Her father encouraged her early interest in art, but her mother encouraged her to become a nurse. Burke graduated from the Slater Industrial and State Normal School (later Winston-Salem State University) and then earned an RN from the Saint Agnes Training School for Nurses in 1924.

Beginning in the late 1920s Burke worked as a private nurse to Amelia Waring, a wealthy heiress. This relationship gave Burke access to New York society and arts culture. After Waring’s death, Burke abandoned her nursing career for a career in art. She was awarded scholarships that allowed her to study both at home and abroad. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College, in Europe, and at Columbia University, where she earned a MA of fine arts in 1941. She also had her fist solo exhibition that same year. 

Bronze plaque of FDR

In 1943 she won a competition to create a profile of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The relief she created formed the basis for the Roosevelt dime, making her the first African American sculptor to design a U.S. coin. She made portraits of other prominent Americans as well, including such figures as Mary McLeod Bethune and Booker T. Washington. She completed more than 20 commissioned works in bronze and wood, and her work appeared in more than 25 shows. Her last monumental work was a sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. that stands in Charlotte’s Marshall Park, completed when Burke was 80 years old. Burke’s work was recognized nationwide. She was the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees during her lifetime.

The artist at work.

Her dedication to art including the teaching of art. In the 1940s she was a Works Progress Administration art instructor and taught art at the Harlem Community Art Center under the sculptor August Savage. She went on to teach at many institutions, including Swarthmore College, Livingston College, the A. W. Mellon Foundation, and Harvard University. She also founded two art schools. In 1940 she founded the Selma Burke school of Sculpture in New York. In 1968 she established the Selma Burke Art Center in Pittsburgh. Burke especially enjoyed bringing children into the art world and for 17 years taught art in Pittsburgh public schools. In her later years she returned to school as a student, as well, earning a  PhD from Livingstone College in 1970. 

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Janet Scudder

(1869–1940), sculptor known for her joyous and amusing fountains; one of the most popular sculptors of her time

Janet Scudder was born Netta Deweze Frazee Scudder in Terre Haue, Indiana, in 1969. She adopted the name Janet while studying at the Cincinnati Academy of Art. At the academy she studied anatomy, drawing, and modeling. In 1891 she moved to Chicago and became an assistant to the sculptor Lorado Taft, who was preparing for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. By helping him create sculptures from scale models, Scudder gained valuable training in what would become her chosen career: sculpting. She showed great talent and was commissioned to make the statues for the Indiana and Illinois buildings at the fair.

The exposition also gave Scudder the opportunity to see a fountain erected by Frederick MacMonnies, an artist who would deeply influence her career. Later that year she traveled to his Paris studio with a letter of introduction and convinced him to let her study under him.

In 1894 she returned to the United States. She lived in New York, supporting herself by fulfilling commissions for portrait medallions and architectural ornamentation. In 1896 she returned to Paris, where the Luxembourg Museum bought several of her medallions. She discovered her true life’s work, however, on a trip to Florence. She found herself thoroughly beguiled by the works of Donatello and Verrocchio and she was brought full circle back to MacMonnies’ fountain.  She immediately embarked on a career producing playful garden statues.

Frog Fountain,
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Her first work, “Frog Fountain,” is also her most famous. It was purchased by architect Stanford White. Scudder spent several years in New York, fulfilling commissions from wealthy figures such as John D. Rockefeller and producing a copy of “Frog Fountain” for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After several years she returned to Paris to live and work, although she made several extended stays back in the U.S.

Scudder participated in both the women’s movement and relief work. She supported suffrage through the National American Woman Suffrage Association. When World War I erupted she returned to the United States, founding the relief organization the Lafayette Fund and working with the Red Cross and the YMCA.

Tortoise Fountain