Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944) was an important illustrator in the Golden Age of American illustration. He sold his first illustration in 1886 to Life magazine,* where his works appeared every week for thirty years. Soon his drawings appeared in every major American magazine, including Harpers’ Weekly, Scribners and Colliers. He illustrated books, including American editions of Charles Dickens’ novels, The Prisoner of Zenda, and Gallegher and Other Stories by swashbuckling journalists and adventurer Richard Harding Davis.** in 1918, he became first editor and then majority owner of Life.

But his most important impact on American culture was the “Gibson Girl,” whose distinctive silhouette and pompadour hairdo became the ideal for American beauty from the 1890s into the 20th century. (I was amused to see that his Princess Flavia, in The Prisoner of Zenda, had an air of the Gibson Girl about her. Evidently the ideal reigned in Ruritania as well as the United States.)

The Gibson Girl was tall, aloof, stylish, and above all, modern. She was equally at home at balls, on bicycles, and at the beach.*** There is often a satirical, feminist element to the images, most notably the drawing titled “The weaker sex” in which Gibson Girls examine a tiny male figure with a magnifying glass, one of them preparing to poke him with a hat pin as if he were an entomological specimen for collection.

(The feminist element can possibly be attributed to the fact that his wife, Irene Langhorne Gibson, who was one of his models and believed to be the original model for the Gibson Girl, was an active suffragist and progressive activist.)

The Gibson Girl was edged off the page as a beauty icon during World War I, when women’s roles, and fashions, began to change in fundamental ways.

*Founded in 1883, Life was originally a general interest and humor magazine, which featured illustrations from many prominent artists of the time. In 1936, magazine mogul Henry Luce purchased the magazine and took advantage of new printing technology to relaunch it as the iconic photographic news magazine, giving Life a new life as it were. (Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help myself.)

**Who deserves to be the subject of a blog post in his own right, now that I think about it.

*** Her image also appeared on a variety of merchandise, including dishes, pillows, wallpaper, and even shirtwaists.  (The idea of wearing a shirtwaist with a picture of a shirtwaist wearing Gibson Girl has a meta quality that amuses me,)