The Red Rose Girls: Howard Pyle, Pt. 2

An illustration for "Evangeline: Tale of
Acadie" by Jessie Willcox Smith

"Howard Pyle counted Jessie Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley among his top students and recommended Smith and Oakley for their first important commission, a series of illustrations for Longfellow's 'Evangeline,' which was published in 1897. He had noticed a similarity between the paintings of the two women that caused him to believe that a collaborative project would be successful. 

However, this equivalence in style was not unique to Jessie and Violet. Many of Pyle's women students worked together on their assignments and approached their paintings in a similar way. Their work was heavily influenced by French Art Nouveau design and illustration with its obvious Japanese influence - flowing feminine lines, floral ornamentation, and unexpected asymmetry. It has been noted that the work of Pyle's female students is much more consistent in style than the work of their male colleagues, a testament to the spirit of camaraderie that developed among the serious women students in the class.

The 'Evangeline' project began a friendship between Jessie and Violet that was to last a lifetime. They could not have been a more unlikely pair, but as they worked, Violet gained respect for Jessie's competence and experience as an illustrator, as well as her technical facility in painting acquired during her tenure at the Academy. Jessie was impressed with Violet too. The younger artist was sophisticated and urbane, with family connections in the art world and in European society - contacts that dazzled Jessie, whose own background was much less illustrious. 

They were both aware that the 'Evangeline' commission was an extraordinary professional opportunity for them. A book with color illustrations by a major author from a top publishing house could launch their careers. When they began their project in earnest, they spent as much time together as possible and showed each new production to their teacher. The process of working as a team was something new to them, but they found the collaboration helpful. Both of them felt that they were producing their best work, and they began to discuss sharing studio space."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)