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JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH (american 1863-1935) SEATED YOUNG GIRL READING A BOOK Signed ''Jessie Willcox Smith'' lower right, mixed media on board 22 3/4 x 15 7/16 in. (57.8 x 39.2cm) provenance: Property from the Estate of Barbara Crawford, Berwyn, Pennsylvania. note: Willcox Smith was one of the most celebrated and highly paid illustrators of her time. She exclusively designed every cover of Good Housekeeping magazine from December 1917 until April 1933, becoming the artist with the longest run of illustrated magazine covers to her name. Her gift as an illustrator and sensitivity in depicting her main subject matter - children - meant she was never without commissions for prominent magazines, books, advertisements as well as children''s portraits. The commercial success of her images highly influenced the culture of nurseries, family rooms and playgrounds in America, and still appeal to millions today. A Philadelphia native, Willcox Smith attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where she studied under renowned American artist Thomas Eakins, as well as Drexel University''s inaugural illustration class under celebrated American illustrator Edward Pyle. It was at the latter (now the Moore College of Art & Design), where she met two fellow artists with whom she would become lifelong friends and close collaborators: Violet Oakley and Elizabeth Shippen Green. Together the three became known as "The Red Rose Girls," spending fifteen years living and working together at the Red Rose Inn in Villanova, Pennsylvania.