1867-1944
Famed American artist/illustrator and "Gibson Girl" creator Charles Dana Gibson was born on this day in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Talented and interested in art from an early age, he was for two years a student at New York's prestigious Art Students League. His specialty quickly became ink illustrations, which first appeared in Life magazine in the 1880's (he would go to work for the publication well after the turn of the century). Penning stylized ink drawings of bust figures, he is especially famous for his illustration of whimsical feminine elegance, inspired by his own wife and sisters-in-law, though he also flirted with illustrations of turn of the century men in high dress and even cartoons. After a time, his illustrations of women became known as "Gibson Girls," and were wildly popular right up to and through most of the first World War. [Probably the most famous of these today is Evelyn Nesbit--she is certainly the most infamous.] While his illustrations appeared in all the biggest east coast magazine publications of his day, it is his illustrations for novels that bring him directly into the world of film. The most famous of these novels to contain original illustrations by Gibson is without a doubt The Prisoner of Zenda, originally published in 1894. The novel was first adapted for the stage; and it subsequently became a VERY popular source for adaptation for multiple films, starting with the very first film in 1913 by the Famous Players studio. Around this same time, himself quite famous by sight, Gibson participated in a little spoof film by IMP starring other famous people of the time. That film--Saved by Parcel Post--was only 5 minutes long and was released in March of 1913. Gibson also had a Broadway credit already in his column from 1905 for play that writer Augustus Thomas wrote based on a narrative series of drawings Gibson had produced; that play was made into a film in 1914 as The Education of Mr. Pipp, and was a production of the All Star Film Corp. Gibson continued to work through the 1920's and part of the 1930's; retiring in 1936 at the age of 69. He passed away in his beloved New York City, 8 years later on the 23rd of December, 1944 of a heart complaint at the age of 77. Despite that he spent all of his adult life in New York and died there, he was buried back in his birth state of Massachusetts at the historic Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. One other note: the Gibson cocktail was said to be named for him, as he is known to have preferred to order martinis with pickled onions as a garnish (and, it's also one of my favorites!)--so next time you see pickled onions in a mixer section....give a thought to Charles and is Gibson Girls.
Gibson Girls (Wikipedia)
Most of the following examples of the Gibson's work were retrieved from Wiki sources (three are from Twitter & and one is Pinterest)
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