Charles Dana Gibson

March 28, 1927 Time cover featuring Gibson

Charles Dana Gibson (September 14, 1867–December 23, 1944) was an American graphic artist, noted for his creation of the Gibson Girl, an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent American woman at the turn of the 20th Century.

Biography

He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts. A talented youth, he was enrolled by his parents in the Art Students League, Manhattan. He studied there for two years before leaving to find work. Peddling his pen-and-ink sketches, he sold his first work in 1886 to John Ames Mitchell's Life magazine. His works appeared weekly in the magazine for over 30 years. He quickly built a wider reputation, his works appearing in all the major New York publications, Harper's Weekly, Scribners and Collier's. His illustrated books include the 1898 editions of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau. The development of the "Gibson Girl" from 1890 and her nationwide fame made Gibson respected and wealthy.

Their First Quarrel, 1914

In 1895, he married Irene Langhorne, born in Danville, Virginia, a sister of Nancy Astor, the first woman to serve in as a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons.^[1] The elegant Langhorne sisters, born to a once-wealthy Virginia family devastated by the Civil War, served as the inspiration for the famous Gibson Girls.^[2][3]

Almost unrestricted merchandising saw his distinctive sketches appear in many forms. He became the editor and eventual owner of Life after the death of Mitchell in 1918. The popularity of the Gibson Girl faded after World War I, and Gibson took to working with oils for his own pleasure.

The Gibson Martini is named after him, as he favored ordering gin martinis with a pickled onion garnish in place of the traditional olive or lemon zest. Gibson owned an Island off of Isleboro Maine which came to be known as 700 Acre Island, where he and his wife spent an increasing amount of time through the years.^[4]

He retired in 1936. On his passing in 1944, Charles Dana Gibson was interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Work

Gibson Girl, circa 1900	Frontispiece to The Prisoner of Zenda, 1898	Illustration from Rupert of Hentzau, 1898	At the Beach, 1901
Fancy Dress, 1901	Love in a Garden, 1901	The Crush, 1901	Art Lesson, 1901
Money Can Buy, 1901	Stepped On, 1901	Fanned Out, 1914	Studies in Expression: When Women Are Jurors 1902

Other works

•   (1905). Sketches In Egypt. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.. http://books.google.com/books?id=xhFOAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2009-07-27. 

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Charles Dana Gibson

• The Gibson Girl and Her America. The Best Drawings of Charles Dana Gibson selected by Edmund Vincent Gillon, Jr. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1969.

 "Gibson, Charles Dana". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.