I Sat Down to Think, for "Harper's"

1906

Not on view

In this gently humorous image a writer dozes in a cramped room next to his manuscript while his untended child seems ready to consign pages to flames in a fireplace at right. Rose O'Neill was one of America's most successful illustrators active early in the 20th century, known for creating the Kewpies, popular cartoon characters who debuted in Ladies' Home Journal in 1909. When she was a child, Rose's family moved to Nebraska from Pennsylvania, where her father then worked as a bookseller. As a teenager, Rose’s artistic talent encouraged her to move to New York to work as an illustrator (living initially in a convent). In addition to selling drawings to popular magazines, she wrote novels and poetry, became a suffragist and was hired a Puck Magazine’s first female staff member. The present image makes humorous reference to the difficulties of a writer's life and contains a baby whose top-knot anticipates the Kewpies. When she drew the image in 1906 the artist was married to Harry Leon Wilson, an editor at Puck, and was moving regularly between New York, her parent's cabin in southern Missouri, and Europe.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: I Sat Down to Think, for "Harper's"
Artist: Rose Cecil Latham O'Neill (American, Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania 1875–1944 near Springfield, Missouri)
Date: 1906
Medium: Pen and ink and brush and wash
Dimensions: Sheet: 19 7/16 × 23 15/16 in. (49.4 × 60.8 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler, 2020
Object Number: 2021.16.22
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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