Artist:
Rose Cecil O'Neill
(American, 1874 - 1944)
Gas
Medium: Ink on paper
Date: 1905
Dimensions:
22 × 15 1/4 in. (55.9 × 38.7 cm)
Accession number: 89.20.3
Label Copy:
Captioned:
Mrs. Gadder — "John you told me you were at home every night thinking of me, while I was in the mountains."
Mr. Gadder — "Y-yes-P-Pet!
Mrs. Gadder — "Look at this gas bill. Only twenty-seven cents for the months of July and August!"
Rose Cecil O'Neill was one of the few women to achieve extraordinary financial success and professional independence in early twentieth-century America through cartooning. Many of her cartoons were created for Puck, Judge, Life, and Harper’s magazines and display her distinctively bold, yet fluid, Art Nouveau-inspired style. In 1909, O’Neill introduced readers of The Ladies’ Home Journal to "The Kewpies," cherubic cartoon characters that soon became a national craze and spun off lucrative contracts for dolls and other merchandise, as well as a popular syndicated Sunday comic strip.
Captioned:
Mrs. Gadder — "John you told me you were at home every night thinking of me, while I was in the mountains."
Mr. Gadder — "Y-yes-P-Pet!
Mrs. Gadder — "Look at this gas bill. Only twenty-seven cents for the months of July and August!"
Rose Cecil O'Neill was one of the few women to achieve extraordinary financial success and professional independence in early twentieth-century America through cartooning. Many of her cartoons were created for Puck, Judge, Life, and Harper’s magazines and display her distinctively bold, yet fluid, Art Nouveau-inspired style. In 1909, O’Neill introduced readers of The Ladies’ Home Journal to "The Kewpies," cherubic cartoon characters that soon became a national craze and spun off lucrative contracts for dolls and other merchandise, as well as a popular syndicated Sunday comic strip.
Curatorial RemarksRose O'Neill was a talented and famous satirist, illustrator, artist, novelist and poet. Like fellow illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, much of O'Neill's work celebrated the sophisticated modern woman. Her distinctive style, influenced by Art Noveau and the posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, is characterized by flattened forms, tilted perspectives, and undulating lines. Her illustrations appeared in major magazines such as "Truth," "Life," "Collier's Weekly," and "Harper's." O'Neill enjoyed an eight-year association with the satiric weekly, "Puck." Her position was unprecedented at a time when most women illustrators were given assignments considered demure and feminine in tone.
In 1909, O'Neill originated the Kewpies and popularized their stories in several magazines. O'Neill patented the Kewpie doll in 1913, and the ensuing "Kewpie craze" made O'Neill a wealthy woman, allowing her time to write poetry and novels.
In 1909, O'Neill originated the Kewpies and popularized their stories in several magazines. O'Neill patented the Kewpie doll in 1913, and the ensuing "Kewpie craze" made O'Neill a wealthy woman, allowing her time to write poetry and novels.