Original watercolor with pen and ink, approximately 15x42". Matted and framed, overall 22x49".
This illustration was created for the Children’s Hospital in Glasgow as one of several panels (the others now un-located). It is from the high point of her career in the first decade of the 20th century. Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) was a Scottish painter and illustrator of children's books. She was born in Bearsden, near Glasgow. In 1892 she entered the Glasgow School of Art, and was made Tutor in Book Decoration and Design there in 1899. King’s first published designs, and some people believe her finest, were for the covers of books published by Globus Verlag, Berlin between 1899 and 1902. The publisher was a subsidiary company of the great Berlin department store, Wertheim's. She was influenced by the Art Nouveau of the period and her works juxtaposed in mood with that of The Glasgow Four. She made a Grand Tour of Germany and Italy in 1902 and was influenced by the works of Botticelli. In the same year her binding for "L'Evangile de L'Enfance" was awarded a gold medal in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art, held in Turin. King became a committee member of the Glasgow Society of Artists (1903) and a member of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists (1905). Her contribution to Art Nouveau peaked during her first exhibitions, Annan's Gallery in Glasgow (1907) and Bruton Street Galleries, London (1905).In 1907 King married E. A. (Earnest Archibald) Taylor, a well-known Scottish artist who worked in painting, stained glass and furniture design. In 1910 they moved on to Paris, where Taylor had gained a professorship at Tudor Hart's Studios. In 1911 King and Taylor opened the Shearing Atelier School in Paris. Her works in Paris are considered as influential to the creation of the Art Deco movement. King and Taylor moved to Kirkcudbright in 1915 and continued to work there until her death. The poem that is the subject of this strong watercolor illustration is by Thomas E. Brown (1830-1897), from “Betsy Lee”. Now the beauty of the thing when childer plays is, The terrible wonderful length the days is, Up you jumps, and out in the Sun, And you fancy the day will never be done; And you’re chasin’ the bum-bees hummin’ so cross in the hot sweet air among the goss, Or gath’rin’ blue-bells, or lookin’ for eggs, Or peltin’ the ducks, with their yalla legs, Or a climbin’, and nearly breakin’ your skulls, Or shoutin’ for divilment after the gulls, Or a thinkin’ of nothin’, but down at the tide, Singin’ out for the happy you feel inside. And when you look back it’s all like a puff, Happy and over and short enough!