Alice B. Woodward facts for kids
Alice Bolingbroke Woodward (born 1862, died 1951) was a talented English artist and illustrator. She created many drawings and pictures, especially for children's books, around the early 1900s. She also drew amazing scientific illustrations.
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About Alice Woodward
Alice Woodward was born on October 3, 1862, in Chelsea, London. Her father, Henry Woodward, was a famous scientist. He was in charge of the geology section at the Natural History Museum in London.
Alice and her six brothers and sisters were taught at home by special teachers. Their parents encouraged all the children to draw from a young age. Because of this, all her sisters grew up to be artists, and all her brothers became scientists.
By the time Alice was a teenager, she was skilled enough to draw pictures for her father's talks. She also drew for papers written by his friends. This helped her earn money to study art.
Her Art Education
Alice first studied at the South Kensington School of Art. Later, she went to the Westminster School of Art in London. She even studied art in Paris at the Académie Julian.
She learned illustration from famous artists like Joseph Pennell and Maurice Greiffenhagen. Because of her connection with Joseph Pennell, she got jobs illustrating children's books. These jobs came from publishers like J. M. Dent and Macmillan and Company. Alice also continued to create scientific drawings throughout her career. She passed away in 1951.
Alice's sister, Gertrude Mary Woodward, was also an artist. She drew detailed pictures for anatomy books. Gertrude was a close friend of the famous author Beatrix Potter.
Her Amazing Illustrations
Alice Woodward was a very busy illustrator. Between 1896 and 1900, she worked for a publisher called Blackie and Son Limited. She drew pictures for many children's books, including To Tell the King the Sky is Falling and Adventures in Toyland. She also contributed to yearly books and school textbooks.
She took over from another artist, Aubrey Beardsley, to illustrate books like Bon-Mots of the Eighteenth Century. From 1907, she mainly worked for George Bell & Sons. For them, she illustrated The Peter Pan Picture Book, which had 28 colorful pictures.
Alice also illustrated stories based on two Gilbert and Sullivan operas. She drew pictures for Lewis Carroll's famous book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Another classic she illustrated was Anna Sewell's Black Beauty. One of her last books was Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals. She illustrated this book in 1930 when she was 68 years old.
Alice also showed her paintings at an art club in Chelsea. These paintings showed scenes from places like Normandy and Norfolk. Her artwork appeared in over 80 publications. This included drawings of dinosaurs for the Illustrated London News!
Signing Her Work
To show the difference between her children's book art and her scientific work, Alice had a special way of signing. For her illustrations, she used a small butterfly drawing as her signature. But for her scientific drawings, she simply wrote her name.
Her scientific drawings were known for being very accurate and precise. This was important for technical drawings. Her pictures always looked lifelike, whether she was drawing a scientific sample or a prehistoric animal.
See Also
- Beare, Geoffrey (1999) The Life and Work of Alice Bolingbroke Woodward (1862-1951). IBIS Journal 1: Aspects of Illustration. London: The Imaginative Book Illustration Society, 70-144.
- Cinamon, G. (1989) Alice B. Woodward. The Private Library, Fourth series, vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 148–177
Images for kids
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One of Woodward's illustrations for The Peter Pan Picture Book, 1907
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"Alas, my poor little bride that was to be!" from The Story of the Mikado (1921) by W. S. Gilbert.
