COVE

A Tale of Six Little Travellers by Mrs. Arthur Gaskin  (H. R. Allenson, 1898)

Illustration was not only a pastime for Georgie Gaskin, as might be expected of women in the period, but also a source of commercial success.  In fact, art was one of the few further-educational practices that women, mainly of middle class backgrounds, could pursue.  

Gaskin was working at a time when the concept of ‘childhood’ as a time of innocence and purity was becoming current, and children’s literature was gaining in popularity.  Her depictions of children playing innocently were undeniably popular;  Gaskin won multiple prizes for her illustrations. And yet Georgie Gaskin’s name is often overshadowed by that of her husband, prolific decorative artist and Birmingham School instructor Arthur Gaskin, with whom she regularly collaborated. With faces lacking in features and rosy cheeks, Georgie Gaskin’s children show the influence of Kate Greenaway (see Apple Pie, also on display). Even more marked in Gaskin’s work is the Regency-style, smock-like clothing with large collars that would be worn by Jane Austen’s characters.  

Caption by Melissa John