A Different Quality of Line

Scottish artist Jessie M. King—(1875-1949) created a more emotionally driven image—Unlike most of her contemporaries at the turn of the century, King was interested in portraying a highly stylized figure, and illustration that communicated by its design as well as by its illustrative properties.

King would become quite popular as a book designer and illustrator in her early career, but it was her design sense that sets her apart, making her work readily identifiable. Frail lines, (I read one description as gossamer— which fits nicely) usually flat figure treatments, often set within a framework. The caption or accompanying text was often woven within the construct of the piece. King's form of calligraphy was so distinct that it can be used today, through a font which bears the name of a "center" she formed for women artists, Greengate. (I've actually used it frequently, and only now discovered it to be based on her lettering...)

Brought to my attention recently through the latest Calla Edition releases- the first two here are from that volume, (which is Oscar Wilde's fairy tale collection—A House of Pomegranates, illustrated in 1915) and a few from some others, to show a bit more variety. The black-and-white line piece is from a 1901 book entitled Modern Pen Drawings. It is captioned "Pelleas et Mélisande," and would have been among her earliest published works. The final two pieces are from a portfolio of drawings that King had published in a Christmas issue of The Studio, in 1913—

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My class at Montclair U. is moving along nicely... we looked at some of Jessie King's line work this past week.

Fine Lines and Solid Blacks, V.I

February, the Heart of the Winter. I like Winter, it gives me plenty of justification to be locked up in the studio. It's been very busy as of late, a big new painting in its final stages, two books about to leave for press, one "in scanning" and one on deck. Of course, there's even more in the wings. So I've been away a bit, but wanted to give you something interesting to look over.

A few posts ago I mentioned the amount of grayscale work published a century ago, and asked about it's worth to the working illustrator today.
OK.—but there was another medium that ruled a century ago, that is damn near dead now. Pen and ink—was not just cheap and easy to reproduce, it was for my money a legitimate art form in its own right. It's a whole different skill set to make an ink piece sing. Great painters are not necessarily great inkers, and vice-versa. What's a pen-and-ink drawing worth to look at today?

Once and a while, I'll post some of these century old ink pieces, Maybe some by the same artist, maybe some by a group almost forgotten today. I'll call this -Fine Lines and Solid Blacks.

This idea was largely born out of a single volume I came across a while back. Modern Pen Drawings: European and American, edited by Charles Holme, from the offices of The Studio, 1901. I love a good ink drawing—A good one will convey the idea of its contents so well that the viewer doesn't see the line.

When I started doing this, ink was still a way marketable to make a drawing, a publishable drawing. My first published piece was an ink drawing, and my first commission was for about 18 ink pieces.... I'd love to see an art director today request that any piece be done in beautiful, high-contrast, ink.

Here's a bunch from when ink it was at it's peak, by some familiar names, and some not-so-
Top to bottom- Dorothy Smythe, Alice B. Woodward, E. W. Charlton, Percy J. Billinghurst, and Patten Wilson, all Brits.

It should be mentioned that JimVadeboncoeur has been gathering this kind of work for a while now, and publishes them occasionally, calling them Black and White Images, (Fifth) Special Collection. (Ok, there are five now) They are treasuries of great, period ink work—in addition to the other collections Jim puts together—Thanks, Jim, keep up the good work.