Clara Elsene Peck

Clara Elsene Peck was born in Allegan, Michigan on April 18, 1883.{{cite encyclopedia| title = Who's Who in the East: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Men and Women of the Eastern United States| volume = 8| page = 1321| publisher = Larkin, Roosevelt & Larkin| location = Boston| year = 1962}} Peck spent her youth in St. Paul, Minnesota and later studied art at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts.{{cite book| author = Brandywine River Museum | author-link = Brandywine River Museum| title = Catalogue of the Collection, 1969–1989| publisher = Brandywine Conservancy| year = 1991| location = Chadds Ford, PA | pages = 216–217}} She took classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine ArtsBy the 1880s, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts had developed a significant female student body. Artists such as Cecilia Beaux were on the teaching faculty during this period. Beaux taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts between 1895 and 1915. See: "The Pennsylvania Academy and its Women", 1850–1920 / [catalogue of an exhibition held] May 3 – June 16, 1974 [at the] Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1974, p. 19; Goodyear, Jr., Frank H., et al., Cecilia Beaux: Portrait of an Artist. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1974. Library of Congress Catalog No. 74-84248, p. 12; {{cite news| title = Cecilia Beaux, biography| publisher = Smithsonian American Art Museum| url = http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?StartRow=1&ID=300| access-date = August 2, 2009| archive-date = December 13, 2004| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20041213084917/http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?StartRow=1&ID=300| url-status = live}} where she studied under American Impressionist painter and teacher William Merritt Chase.Brandywine River Museum 1991, p. 216; See also: {{cite book |last=Reed |first=Walt |title=The Illustrator in America: 1860–2000 |publisher=Collins Design |year=2003 |location=New York |page=65}} Chase was a teacher at the Art Students League of New York (1878–1896, returns in 1908), and the Brooklyn Art Association (1887, and 1891–96). He also founded the Shinnecock Summer School of Art (1891) at his summer home near Southampton, Long Island, and the Chase School of Art in New York City (1896) which became the New York School of Art in 1898. He also taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1896–1909). Notable pupils included Patrick Henry Bruce, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, and Martha Walter. See: {{cite web |title=William Merritt Chase | Biography | Hollis Taggart Galleries |url=http://www.hollistaggart.com/artists/biography/william_merritt_chase/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090105200645/http://www.hollistaggart.com/artists/biography/william_merritt_chase/ |archive-date=January 5, 2009 |access-date=August 10, 2009}} [http://www.sullivangoss.com/william_merritt_chase/] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822153457/http://www.sullivangoss.com/william%5Fmerritt%5Fchase/|date=August 22, 2009}}{{Cite news |date=March 19, 1990 |title=Two Lives: J. Scott Williams and Clara Elsene Peck |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-gettysburg-times-two-lives-j-scott/162689122/ |access-date=2025-01-10 |work=The Gettysburg Times |pages=14 |via=Newspapers.com}} Reminiscing about her early years, Peck said: "With me the desire to become an artist has been strong since childhood. Other members of the family in previous generations were artists, making the love and joy in creative expression a natural one to me."{{cite book| last = Mahoney| first = Bertha E.|author2=Elinor Whitney| title = Contemporary Illustrators of Children's Books| publisher = The Bookshop for Boys and Girls, Women's Educational and Industrial Union| year = 1930| location = Boston| page = 55}}

File:CEPJSW2.jpg

In 1906, Peck married British-born illustrator John Scott Williams (1877–1975), and they produced two children together, Aynard and Conway.{{cite encyclopedia|title=Who's Who on the Pacific Coast: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Men and Women of the Pacific Coast and the Western States|edition=2|publisher=A.N. Marquis Co.|location=Boston|year=1951|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NIsRAAAAIAAJ&q=clara+elsene+peck|access-date=October 21, 2016|archive-date=October 30, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211030144744/https://books.google.com/books?id=NIsRAAAAIAAJ&q=clara+elsene+peck|url-status=live}} Peck and Williams shared similar styles, leading the two to occasionally collaborate on illustrations together. These works were signed with the first initials of their last names, "P W".See: Today's Housewife, December 1917 Some of Peck's works are also credited as Clara Elsene Williams{{cite book|last=Bacon|first=Josephine Daskam|others=illustrated by Clara Elsene Williams|title=The Luck o Lady Joan: A Fairy Tale for Women|url=https://archive.org/details/luckoladyjoan00baco|publisher=FG Browne & Co.|year=1913|location=Chicago}}{{cite book|last=Kipling|first=Rudyard|others=illustrated by Clara Elsene Williams|title=Actions and Reactions|publisher=Doubleday, Page, & Company|year=1909|location=New York|isbn=9781534793897|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tKMKAAAAYAAJ}} and the press sometimes referred to her as "Mrs. John Scott Williams".

After illustrator Harvey Dunn founded the Leonia School of Illustration in Leonia, New Jersey in 1915,{{cite book|last=Mattingly|first=Paul H.|title=Suburban Landscapes: Culture and Politics in a New York Metropolitan Community|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|date=November 15, 2001|location=Baltimore|pages=117–33}} Mattingly outlines the value of the Leonia art colony centered around Dunn as an important continuation of Howard Pyle's Brandywine school and the emergence of the Leonia community as a significant suburban social and cultural influence. Peck and Williams moved to an artist colony in Leonia, joining a group of about 90 professional artists.{{cite book|last=Karels|first=Carol|title=Leonia|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|year=2002|page=83|isbn=0-7385-0973-6}}

They lived in a house originally built by artist Charles Harry Eaton (American, 1850–1901) on Crescent AvenueMattingly, Suburban Landscapes, p. 315 and were neighbors with artist-couple John Rutherford Boyd (1882–1951) and Harriet Repplier Boyd. The Boyds' house became a community center of artistic gatherings where many of Leonia's artists exhibited their works.Mattingly, Suburban Landscapes, p. 222 The marriage between Peck and Williams came to an end, and J. Scott Williams remarried in 1930.

Peck later resided in Brooklyn, New York and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Towards the end of her life, art historian Helen Teri Caro located Peck and acquired over 100 pieces of her artwork on behalf of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta.{{cite book|last=Larson|first=Judy L.|title=American Illustration 1890–1925|publisher=Glenbow Museum|year=1986|location=Calgary|page=15}} Peck died in Gettysburg in February 1968.{{cite news|title=Obituary 3 – No Title|page=A8|newspaper=Chicago Tribune|date=February 27, 1968|quote=Mrs. J. Scott Williams, 84, artist and magazine illustrator who worked under the name of Clara Elsene Peck; in Gettysburg, Pa.}}

Peck's career in illustration began in the early 1900s with her work for publisher George W. Jacobs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was a period when technological innovations in halftone and color printing engendered the "Golden Age of Illustration".Reed, The Illustrator in America: 1860–2000, p. 111Developments in halftone and color printing allowed leading artists such as Howard Pyle and Edwin Austin Abbey to showcase their abilities in a burgeoning field of illustrated magazines such a Harper's, Scribner's, McClure's, The Century, as well as the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. In addition to illustrations, Peck created decorations and lettering designs for books. Notable works from this period include illustrations for Sara Hawks Sterling's Shakespeare's Sweetheart (1905) and A Lady of King Arthur's Court (1907), and Josephine Daskam Bacon's In the Border Country (1909). Peck eventually illustrated at least four additional books by Bacon.See The Luck o Lady Joan: a fairy tale for women, Chicago: F G Brown & co., 1913; The Girl at the Window, New York: Appleton-Century Company, 1934; The Room on the Roof, A Mystery Novel for Girls. New York: Appleton-Century Company, 1935; Girl wanted!: a mystery story. New York: Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1936

File:Theatre Magazine 21.jpg

By 1908, Peck had designed her first cover for Collier's.Collier's (October 3, 1908) Peck began illustrating women's magazines during the 1910s and 1920s,{{cite news|last=Parks |first=John A. |title=The Golden Age of American Illustration |publisher=American Artist |date=June 2006 |url=http://www.allbusiness.com/services/museums-art-galleries-botanical-zoological/4360136-1.html |access-date=August 2, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091008012044/http://www.allbusiness.com/services/museums-art-galleries-botanical-zoological/4360136-1.html |archive-date=October 8, 2009 }} contributing to Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Today's Housewife, and Household Magazine.For examples of her work during this period, see: Cosmopolitan, May 1928, Vol. LXXXIV, No. 5; Good Housekeeping, December 1927, Vol. LXXXV, No.6; The Ladies Home Journal, June 1921, Vol. XXXVIII, No.6; Today's Housewife, December 1917; The Household Magazine, December 1935, Vol. 35, No.12. Peck's magazine illustrations appeared in St. Nicholas Magazine, The Century Magazine, The Delineator, the Pictorial Review, and The Youth's Companion.For examples of her work during this period, see: The Century Monthly Magazine, November 1914, Vol. 89, No.1; Collier's – The National Weekly, September 15, 1917, Vol. 60, No.1; The Delineator, December 1917; Pictorial Review, April 1927, Vol. XXIII, No.7; The Youths Companion, November 24, 1910, Vol. 84, No.47 She contributed several cover illustrations to Theatre Magazine in the early 1920sFor example: Theatre Magazine, March 1922 and worked as a commercial artist on advertising campaigns for companies such as Procter & Gamble, Metropolitan Life, the Aeolian Company, and Ivory Soap.Advertisement illustrations include: Vogue, December 15, 1915, Vol. XLIV, No.7; The Womans Home Companion, July 1917, Vol. XLIV, No.7 Peck also illustrated educational books, educational certificates, sheet music, fiction, and fairy tales.See: The Story Reader's First Year. By May Langdon White & Parker Hoysted Fillmore. World Book Co., 1914; Sheet music for "Mammy's Song" by Laura Spencer Portor & Harriet Ware, The John Church Company, 1910; Laboulaye's Fairy Book. By Mary L. Booth. New York, London: Harper & Brothers, 1927 and Sandman's Once-Upon-A-Time Stories (Publisher series: Sandman Stories). By Abbie Phillips Walker. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1925

Women and children in Peck's work were depicted with great sensitivity in a wide variety of roles and responsibilities. Art historian and illustrator Walt Reed describes Peck's style as "decorative in composition and sensitive in rendering". Artistic themes found in Peck's work include education, child psychology, and the expectant mother. The decorative style of the period was popularized by seminal American illustrator Howard Pyle and his female students.{{cite book| last = Reed| first = Walt| title = America's Great Women Illustrators 1850–1950 | publisher = Society of Illustrators| year = 1985| location = New York| page = 8}} "For many years, women illustrators dominated the fantasy and fairy tale fields as well as the school reading textbooks."Reed, The Illustrator in America: 1860–2000, p. 87 According to Elizabeth H. Hawkes, curator emeritus of the Delaware Art Museum, the style consisted of "using flat, brightly colored figures boldly outlined and placed against a patterned background. They incorporated elements of the popular 1890s poster style and borrowed motifs from Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and the English Arts and Crafts movement style of illustration."{{cite book| last = Hawkes| first = Elizabeth H.| title = America's Great Women Illustrators 1850–1950 | publisher = Society of Illustrators| year = 1985| location = New York| page = 12}}

Peck's career in illustration was active from the "Golden Age of American Illustration" through the onset of the Great Depression when the careers of illustrators suffered due to the poor economy.Reed, The Illustrator in America: 1860–2000, p. 163 The output of magazine illustrations from Peck continued until at least 1935.As an example of her work during this period, see: The Household Magazine, Vol. 35, #12, December 1935

File:CEPAWS50.jpg

In the 1940s, Peck worked as a cartoonist for Topix Comics and Treasure Chest, a series of Catholic-themed comic books. Topix Comics was launched in 1942 and produced in St. Paul, Minnesota. The comic book featured stories of courageous Christians, Saints, and Biblical narratives, and by 1946, it had a circulation of over 600,000.{{cite news| last = Carlson| first = Mark| title = Hey! That Ain't Funny!' (Part 2)| work = Religious Comic Books in the Forties. Volume 2, Issue 2| publisher = NostalgiaZone.com| year = 2006| url = http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/06_V2N2/thataintfunny.htm| access-date = August 4, 2009| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110722021155/http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/06_V2N2/thataintfunny.htm| archive-date = July 22, 2011| url-status = dead}} Peck's work was distributed exclusively in parochial schools and appeared throughout most of the title's nine-year run. She also provided material for early issues of the similarly themed Treasure Chest title,{{cite web| last = Bails| first = Jerry| author-link = Jerry Bails| author2 = Hames Ware| title = Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999| publisher = Jerry Bails| year = 2006| url = http://www.bailsprojects.com/(S(12vu4u4550oly355f4baot45))/bio.aspx?Name=PECK%2c+CLARA| access-date = August 4, 2009| display-authors = etal| archive-date = September 4, 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110904223636/http://www.bailsprojects.com/(S(12vu4u4550oly355f4baot45))/bio.aspx?Name=PECK,+CLARA| url-status = live}} including a few episodes of "The Robinson's Rumpus Room" feature and the cover for Volume 2, Number 9 in 1946.{{Cite web |url=http://comics.lib.msu.edu/rri/prri/peb.htm |title=Index to Comic Art Collection: "Pebble" to "Pedwick" |access-date=November 23, 2011 |archive-date=March 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305014327/http://comics.lib.msu.edu/rri/prri/peb.htm |url-status=live }}

Peck participated in several exhibitions in the 1950s, beginning with the American Watercolor Society. From 1956 to 1957, Peck was part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's European traveling exhibition; In 1958, Peck's work appeared at the Washington County Museum of Art, in a solo exhibition at Gettysburg College, at the York Art Center, and in New Canaan, Connecticut.{{cite book| editor-last = Falk| editor-first = Peter Hastings| title = Who was who in American Art: 1564–1975, Vol. 3 | publisher = Sound View Press | year = 1999| location = Madison, CT| page = 2557}} The Brandywine River Museum and the Delaware Art Museum host her paintings.{{cite web| last = Peck| first = Clara Elsene Williams| title = Berry Pickers, (painting)| work = "Brandywine River Museum: Catalogue of the Collection, 1969–1989" Chadds Ford, PA: Brandywine Conservancy, 1991, p. 216| publisher = Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture Database| year = 2004| url = http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!378596!0#focus| access-date = August 6, 2009| archive-date = February 17, 2012| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120217121444/http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!378596!0#focus| url-status = live}}; {{cite web| last = Peck| first = Clara Elsene Williams| title = Cover for The Homemaker, Sept. 1932, (painting)| work = "American Illustration: The Collection of the Delaware Art Museum", Wilmington, DE: Delaware Art Museum, 1991, p. 134. Hawkes, Elizabeth H., "American Painting and Sculpture, Delaware Art Museum", Wilmington, DE: Delaware Art Museum, 1975, p. 174| publisher = Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture Database| year = 2004| url = http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=all&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!376776~!0#focus| access-date = August 6, 2009| archive-date = February 17, 2012| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120217121458/http://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=all&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!376776~!0#focus| url-status = live}} Since 2000, a few landscape and portrait oil paintings sales have been recorded at various auction houses.{{cite news| title = Clara Elsene Peck| publisher = AskART – The artists' Bluebook| year = 2009| url = http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/Search_Repeat.aspx?searchtype=IMAGES&artist=28753| access-date = August 2, 2009| archive-date = May 25, 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110525013741/http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/Search_Repeat.aspx?searchtype=IMAGES&artist=28753| url-status = live}}

Peck was a member of several art associations, including the American Watercolor Society (1931–1967),{{cite news| title = First One Hundred Years Members| publisher = American Watercolor Society| year = 2009| url = http://www.americanwatercolorsociety.com/a_first_100_years.php?letter=p#list| access-date = August 2, 2009| archive-date = June 28, 2009| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090628033240/http://www.americanwatercolorsociety.com/a_first_100_years.php?letter=p#list| url-status = live}} the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, National Association of Women Artists, the New York Watercolor Society and the Society of Illustrators. Along with Florence Scovel Shinn, Rose O'Neill and others, Peck was one of the first 20 women to become a member of the Society of Illustrators by 1922, representing about 10% of the total membership.{{cite book| last = Brown| first = Terry| title = America's Great Women Illustrators 1850–1950 | publisher = Society of Illustrators| year = 1985| location = New York| page = 22}} In 1913, Peck's work was featured in exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and at the National Association of Women Artists and the New York Association of Women Painters and Sculptors where she won awards in 1920 and 1921. Posthumously, Peck's works were featured in the seminal 1976 New York exhibition, 200 Years of American Illustration;Pitz, 200 Years of American Illustration, pp. 12–13 In 1985 at the America's Great Women Illustrators 1850–1950 exhibition in New York;{{cite book| last = Reed| first = Walt| title = America's Great Women Illustrators 1850–1950 | publisher = Society of Illustrators| year = 1985| location = New York| page = 9}} And, in 1986, at the American Illustration 1890–1925 exhibition held in Calgary.

• Phases, Mazes and crazes of love. By Minna Thomas Antrim. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs and Company, 1904.
• Knocks, Witty Wise and ____. By Minna Thomas Antrim. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs and Company, 1905.
• Shakespeare's Sweetheart. By Sara Hawks Sterling. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co, 1905.
• A Lady of King Arthur's Court. By Sara Hawks Sterling. Philadelphia: George W Jacobs and Co., 1907.
• In the Border Country. By Josephine Daskam Bacon. New York: Doubleday Page, 1909.
• The Hallowell Partnership. By Katharine Holland Brown. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912.
• The Prince of Mercuria. By Atkinson Kimball. New York: Heart's International Library Co., 1914.
• The Diary of an Expectant Mother. By Charlotte Hirsch. Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1917.

{{Gallery

| title =

|File:CEP-Antrim.jpg|An early illustration from Phases, Mazes and Crazes of Love (1904)

|File:Peck-KingArthur2.jpg|A Lady of King Arthur's Court (1907)

|File:Peck-KingArthur1.jpg|A Lady of King Arthur's Court (1907)

|File:CEPCOL1908.jpg|Cover to Collier's (October 3, 1908)

|File:Scribners1915.jpg|Illustration from Scribner's Magazine (1915)

|File:Srivory.jpg|Advertisement for Ivory Soap (1918)

|File:Theatre_march_1922_1.jpg|Illustrated cover for Theatre Magazine (1922)

||Cover to American Boy (November 1926)

|File:Treasure Chest vol2No9.jpg|Cover to Treasure Chest (1946)

|File:Treasure Chest vol2No16 page.jpg|A page from Treasure Chest (1947)

}}

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{Gutenberg author | id=25254 | name=Clara Elsene Peck}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Clara Elsene Peck |sopt=t}}
• [http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/Search_Repeat.aspx?searchtype=IMAGES&artist=28753 Auction records at askart.com] Retrieved September 27, 2008
• [http://www.ortakales.com/illustrators/Peck.html Bio at Ortakales.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190908011544/http://www.ortakales.com/illustrators/Peck.html |date=September 8, 2019 }} Retrieved July 10, 2008

• [http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/ARCH/pec/gir&num_rows=18&start_row=1 Girl Wanted!] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200407134555/https://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/ARCH/pec/gir&num_rows=18&start_row=1 |date=April 7, 2020 }} by Josephine Daskam Bacon
• [http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/ARCH/pec/in In the Border Country] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200407134550/https://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/ARCH/pec/in |date=April 7, 2020 }} by Josephine Daskam Bacon
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080513175030/http://www.violetbooks.com/gal-histdelight2.html The Prince of Mercuria] by Atkinson Kimball

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Category:1968 deaths

Category:1883 births

Category:People from Allegan, Michigan

Category:American female comics artists

Category:American fantasy artists

Category:American children's book illustrators

Category:Artists from Michigan

Category:Artists from Minnesota

Category:Artists from New Jersey

Category:Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni

Category:National Association of Women Artists members

Category:People from Leonia, New Jersey

Category:American women children's book illustrators

Category:20th-century American painters

Category:20th-century American women painters