Rose O'Neill's Biography

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"Give me this child," my father was saying. "I want to make an experiment. Specialize. She shall have no studies except those conducive to the Arts".

"For pity’s sake," said my mother. "Let the poor little creature get an ordinary education first".

"She will have no occasion for an ordinary education."

"But she can’t say two and two make four".

"Why should she? "he asked. "I don’t expect her to be at such a loss for something to say".

I was present. But I was not conspicuously present, being under a table drawing little fat frogs on lily-pads in the fly-leaves of a book. The frogs had a Kewpish look though it was a quarter of a century before I drew my first Kewpie.

- Rose O’Neill

Her Story

The story of Rose O’Neill is a modern day fairy tale. Cecilia Rose O’Neill was born in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania in 1874 to William Patrick O’Neill and Alice Asenath O’Neill. Papa O’Neill had romantic ideas about country life, so he moved the family from their comfortable Victorian Emerald Cottage to a sod house on the Nebraska prairie in 1877. His idea was to lead the glamorous life of a farmer who had nothing to do but to read poetry and love. Instead, he journeyed to neighboring towns to sell books to people who did not feel the need for them. Rose’s mother Meemie had never cooked, mended, or planted. The O’Neill family was unsuited for pioneer living, just as much as the satin drapes, tapestries, and piles of books the children had to sit on in place of chairs. The O’Neill’s soon moved to the city of Omaha, where they eventually grew to a family of eight. Rose was the second born child and the eldest girl. She adored taking care of the younger children, and was devastated when her baby brother Edward died suddenly at the age of 2.

Rose honed her natural abilities by copying pictures from the many volumes in her father’s library. At the age of 14, she entered a contest sponsored by the Omaha World Herald for the best drawing by a Nebraska school child. The title of her submission was a very sophisticated theme entitled "Temptation Leading Down into an Abyss". Raising suspicions to its originality, she was asked to come to the editor’s office to demonstrate her skill. She won a five dollar gold piece, and by the early 1890’s Rose began selling her drawings to publications as far away as Denver and Chicago, thus launching a career as a full-fledged illustrator.

As legend tells, when Rose was 18, her mother sold the family cow to send her to New York to seek work as an illustrator. She stayed with the Sisters of St. Regis who accompanied her on her sales calls. Rose sold many illustrations to such periodicals as Colliers, Truth, Life, and Harpers. She signed her drawings C.R.O. to hide the fact that she was a woman. A year after she had moved to New York, Rose traveled to her family's new home in the remote Missouri Ozarks. It took two days by wagon to get from Springfield to the O’Neill homestead. In her autobiography Rose recalled, "The next day we went deeper and deeper into the thick woods. I forgot my fears and shouted with joy. I called it the tangle and my extravagant heart was tangled in it for good." She named the O’Neill homestead "Bonniebrook" because of the little stream that ran along side the family’s cabin.

After a long stay, Rose returned to New York. She became the first female staff artist at Puck Magazine. In 1896 she married her sweetheart Gray Latham. He had a habit of spending her money just as fast as she made it. There were times that Gray showed up on pay day to pick up Rose’s wages, leaving her without any money for car fare. This upset Rose a great deal, as she was the sole support of her large family back in Missouri and they depended on her. The tumultuous marriage lasted only five years, and the divorce left Rose devastated. She had been squirreling away money to send to her mother, so that her family could begin construction on a 14 room Ozark mansion.

Bonniebrook was where Rose went to mend her broken heart. She began receiving mysterious letters and packages from an admirer in New York, who turned out to be Harry Leon Wilson the literary editor at Puck Magazine. Always the romantic, Rose was smitten more with his letters than with Harry. They began their ill-fated marriage in 1902. Rose and Harry split their time between Bonniebrook, Cos Cob, Connecticut, Paris, and the Isle of Capri, off the coast of Italy. Harry and Rose were both busy writing the next few years. Rose published her first illustrated novel The Loves of Edwy in 1904. Harry was writing novels and Broadway plays with his partner Booth Tarkington. In 1906 Rose was elected to the Societe’ des Beaux Arts in Paris. This honor included the privilege of exhibiting in the society’s Paris salon where her paintings and drawings met with much enthusiasm. While wintering at Bonniebrook in 1905, tragedy struck the O’Neill family once again. Rose’s brother Jamie died suddenly of smallpox at the age of 24. During the five years that Rose and Harry were together, Harry was extremely sullen and moody and couldn’t bear Rose’s bubbly and exuberant personality. He particularly hated it when she talked to him in baby talk which she continued to do nonetheless. Rose’s marriage to Harry ended in 1907 although they remained amiable. She was done with marriage for good.

1909 marked the beginning of Rose’s life as a very wealthy woman. That year she created the Kewpies and they appeared in the Christmas issue of The Ladies Home Journal. They then appeared regularly in the Woman’s Home Companion and Good Housekeeping for the next 25 years. Kewpies became a phenomenon. A merchandising boom swept over the world in 1913 lasting for decades. Items from dolls to doorknockers were produced bearing the image of Rose’s Kewpies.

From this, Rose acquired a spacious and well appointed apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village, a 10 acre estate in Westport, Connecticut she named Carabas Castle after the marquis in Puss in Boots and her love of cats, and she also purchased a villa on Capri from her friend, American landscape painter Charles Caryl Coleman. Generous to a fault, Rose allowed Coleman, who could no longer afford the villa, to reside there until his death. Not only did Rose continue supporting her large family, she also held court at her many estates for fledgling artists. Guests would come for the weekend and stay on for years. She did not have the heart to throw them out. She was also too kind hearted to give another artist advice on his work . ''I couldn’t tell him the truth", she was quoted as saying of a talentless would be artist. " It’d be like stepping on a kitten."

Rose continued to illustrate for magazines, advertisers, publishing houses, and her monthly Kewpie comic pages. She was a workaholic, working well into the night. She also continued to produce a large body of personal work which she described as the "Sweet Monsters". Her mentor, French sculptor Auguste Rodin, had encouraged Rose to show the world these private drawings. In 1921 Rose had an entire exhibition of the monster drawings at the Galerie Devambez in Paris. The following year the exhibition was shown again to an American audience at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York. Both shows met with rave reviews.

All of the estates and people Rose was supporting began to drain her finances. By the 1930’s, the Kewpies were no longer generating the kind of income they once did. Magazines began using photographs, as illustration was out of vogue. Rose had a difficult time finding work, and was finally forced to sell off her many properties. Meemie’s failing health and her financial woes brought Rose back to Bonniebrook for good in 1936, the same year Papa O’Neill had died. Rose’s beloved mother Meemie followed in 1937. Never down-hearted, Rose spent her retirement writing her memoirs, speaking at local colleges, and trying unsuccessfully to replicate the success of the Kewpie with a laughing Buddha character she named HoHo. Although Rose died impoverished in April of 1944 at the age of 69, she had made nearly fifty-five hundred drawings, innumerable paintings both in oil and watercolor; she was a sculptor, suffragist, inventor, business woman, philosopher, poet, novelist, children’s book author, and even a musician. There is no mistaking that she lived an extraordinarily rich and productive life.

As a postscript, in a letter written by Paul O’Neill, Rose’s nephew, to Rowena Godding Ruggles, the author of "The One Rose" in 1956 he stated, "Much of the absence of information on Rose and her work is due to the fire which consumed Bonniebrook after her death. I shudder to think of all that burned; fourteen rooms and an attic full to overflowing! The great loss was Rose’s writings and her valuable collection of rare, first-edition, autographed books; books in which she had made marginal notes. There were valuable antique furnishings, paintings, and many priceless art treasures. However, Rose had been persuaded, shortly before her death, to move a whole museum full of her possessions to School of the Ozarks (now College of the Ozarks), in Branson (Missouri). And I, by some chance, drove down to Bonniebrook just two days before the fire and brought back all her unframed drawings."

Further Readings on Rose O'Neill

Rose O'Neill - The Girl Who Loved to Draw

by Linda Brewster

© 2009 Linda Brewster and published by Boxing Day Books

American Illustrator Rose O’Neill

by J. L. Wilkerson

© 2001 Acorn Books

The Story of Rose O’Neill – An Autobiography

Edited by Miriam Formanek-Brunell

© 1997 University of Missouri Press

Kewpies and Beyond – The World of Rose O’Neill

by Shelley Armitage

© 1994 University Press of Mississippi

The One Rose – Mother of the Immortal Kewpies

by Rowena Godding Ruggles

© 1964 Rowena Godding Ruggles

Titans and Kewpies – the Life and Art of Rose O’Neill

by Ralph Alan McCanse

© 1968 Vantage Press

The Illustrator & Cartoonist

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Unlike most illustrators of the time, Rose O’Neill was self-taught, learning how to draw human form by copying works from her father’s library. She also drew live models, usually family members, and even practiced drawing her own image in the mirror. Rose knew little about commercial art, and she entered the profession at a time when most illustrators were male.

O’Neill’s appeal was due to a combination of her sense of humor and her romantic nature. It didn’t hurt that she could work quickly and meet deadlines. Rose’s output was prolific. Her tool of choice was pen and India ink, and she specialized in romantic scenes, family life, and comedic situations.

During her early years in New York, Rose illustrated for such periodicals as Harper’s, Life, Broadway Life, Cosmopolitan, and Colliers. By 1896 she was on staff at Puck Magazine where she produced nearly 700 cartoons and illustrations. Her work became highly recognizable and advertising executives took notice. Among the many clients who hired Rose were Oxydol, Rock Island Railroad, Edison Phonograph, Brownie Cameras, Kellogg Cornflakes, Pratt and Lambert Varnishes, and Jell-O (which was her most recognizable advertising account). She did in the neighborhood of 100 illustrations for Jell-O from 1909 to 1922.

The Kewpies

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"Do good deeds in a funny way. The world needs to laugh

or at least smile more than it does."

-Rose O’Neill

This quote represents the philosophy Rose O’Neill expressed through her Kewpies. The idea for them had been fermenting in the creative mind of Rose since childhood. The likeness of the Kewpie came from several sources. In an interview in Hobbies Magazine Rose recalled, The idea grew from a baby brother when I was a little girl. I made drawings of him while I played with him. All his little looks and gestures came out later in the Kewpie.

Rose elaborated on the story of how the Kewpies came into being. While Rose was on an extended stay at Bonniebrook in 1909, the Kewpie was born. Rose recounted, "In illustrating love stories I had a way of making decorative head and tail pieces with Cupids. Edward Bok of the Ladies’ Home Journal cut out a number of these and sent them to me. He asked me if I could make a series of the little creatures and said that he would find someone to make accompanying verses. I replied that I would make the verses up myself and wrote him an illustrated letter in which I created the character of the Kewpie. I invented the name for little Cupid, spelling it with a K because it seemed funnier. I thought about the Kewpies so much that I had a dream about them where they were all doing acrobatic pranks on the coverlet of my bed".

The Kewpies first made their appearance in the 1909 Christmas issue of The Ladies' Home Journal. They appeared regularly in the Woman’s Home Companion and Good Housekeeping for the next 25 years. In 1912, the first Kewpie Kutouts were printed in the Woman’s Home Companion. The Kewpie Kutouts were the brain child of Rose, who had taken the idea of the paper doll to a new level. Rose thought that a paper doll should have both a front and back giving it more play value. She was the first person to design paper dolls this way. Immediately after the Kewpie Kutouts appeared in Woman’s Home Companion, children began clamoring for a Kewpie they could hold.

In 1912, production began on Kewpie dolls made out of bisque porcelain by J. D. Kestner Co. in Germany. They were made in nine different sizes. The demand was so tremendous, that there were twenty-one factories producing Kewpie dolls. Rose and Callista, her sister and business manager, traveled to Germany to oversee production. Rose found that the smallest ones were inferior in quality to the others which distressed her. She told the workers that this particular doll was being made for the poorest children and for that reason they must be made as carefully as the others. The quality of the smallest ones immediately improved. In 1913 the patent for Kewpie dolls and the KEWPIE trademark were registered.

Kewpies became an utter phenomenon. A merchandising boom swept over the world in 1913 lasting for decades. Items from dolls to doorknockers were produced bearing the image of Rose’s Kewpies. Adults and children alike were mad for them.

By the late 1920’s, the Kewpie began to decline in popularity, but never fell into total obscurity. Over the decades, Kewpies have made a huge resurgence in popularity. There are Kewpie collector clubs and Rose O’Neill fan clubs throughout the world. There is an annual festival known as Kewpiesta held each April in Branson, Missouri. To this day, new Kewpie merchandise continues to be manufactured and sold. If you are in the market for an antique Kewpie, you should be aware that they have become highly sought after and can command high prices.

The Artist & Sculptor

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"I am in love with magic and monsters,

and the drama of form emerging from the formless".

- Rose O’Neill

Rose O’Neill was steeped in Irish folklore and Greek mythology. She believed in fairies, giants, and trolls. The influences of these are unmistakable when you take in Rose’s personal work which she described as Sweet Monsters. The drawings are unlike Rose’s other work, with line suggesting the chisel rather than the brush.

The artistic vision for these works came to Rose on her first visit to the Ozarks in 1894. Rose describes the trip in her autobiography; "As darkness came the woods grew wilder. The heaped rocks with twisted roots of trees made strange figures. I seemed to see primeval shapes with slanted foreheads, deep arched necks, and heaping shoulders playing on primordial flutes. I had a sort of cloudy vision of pictures I was to make long afterwards-a great female figure loomed out of the rocks holding mankind on her vast bosom. That night there came to me the title of the unborn picture, The Nursing Monster".

When the drawings were first shown to the public in Paris, they were described as powerful, brilliant, and original.

Author

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Many people do not realize that Rose O’Neill was a published author as well as an artist. Here you will find a compilation of books Rose authored and illustrated over the years.

Books Written and Illustrated By Rose O’Neill

The Loves of Edwy/Lathrop Publishing Co. 1904

The Lady In the White Veil/Harper & Bros. 1909

The Kewpies and Dottie Darling/George Doran Co. 1912

The Kewpies Their Book/George Doran Co. 1913

The Kewpie Kutouts/Frederick Stokes NY 1914

The Kewpie Primer/Frederick Stokes NY 1916

The Master Mistress/Alfred A, Knopf 1922

The Kewpies and the Runaway Baby/Doubleday Doran & Co. 1928

Garda/Doubleday Doran & Co. 1929

The Goblin Woman/Doubleday Doran & Co. 1930

Rose O’Neill’s Ragsy and Ritzy/Whitman Publishing 1932

Scootles and Kewpie Doll Book/Saalfield Publishing Co. 1936

Scootles In Kewpieville Coloring Book/Saalfield Publishing 1936

Activist

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Rose O’Neill never hesitated to become involved with different politics or women’s issues and eagerly used her artistic talent to illustrate programs, posters, or political cartoons to express her support of worthy causes. She was frequently in attendance at suffrage parades and often found that her artistic fame came in handy in drawing attention to the unfair treatment of women and minorities. She supported many worthwhile causes such as the Red Cross and the National Tuberculosis Society.

The Kewpie Korner Kewpiegram by Rose O’Neill appeared in newspapers across the United States from 1917 through 1918. These small cartoons with poems promoted woman suffrage and other controversial subject matter.

There are many documented news articles that confirm the active role that O’Neill played in the campaign for women’s equality. A Los Angeles Tribune article stated, " The most celebrated of America’s black and white artists, Rose O’Neill, creator of The Kewpies is an ardent suffragist and an active member of the Press and Publicity Council of New York City. To aid in their campaign for Votes for Women Nov. 2, she has just designed and donated to them the striking poster here reproduced". This poster was used in 1915 and then later in the 1917 voting campaign and was titled "Together for Home and Family". Vote Yes for the Woman Suffrage Amendment Nov. 2.

Suffrage posters are rare and very few are known to exist today. Posters and flyers that were tacked and posted on telephone poles and on the sides of buildings were frequently torn down and destroyed by those individuals that were opposed to women having the right to vote. Fortunately, postcards and newspaper articles displaying O’Neill’s suffrage art are more plentiful and are proudly included in the historical preserved documents of museums and collectors.

Rose O’Neill, never one to follow any popular trend of the day, felt that one should dress comfortably and often wore her long flowing floor length robes that she referred to as an aura or a mantle. The garment was made from a single length of material like a poncho, and was loosely cinched at the waist with a braided belt. The Ozark natives referred to her robe as a flyin’ squirrel dress due to the very wide oriental style sleeves.

On April 25, 1915, the New York Press printed a newspaper article entitled "Rose O’Neill in Campaign to Introduce Her Novel Art Garb". Rose O'Neill was quoted as saying, "It is quite time that a decisive stroke was struck for the freedom of women, not only as regards to the suffrage question, and, of course, I am very keen on that, but on other matters. The first step is to free women from the yoke of modern fashions and modern dress. How can they hope to compete with men when they are boxed up tight in the clothes that are worn today?"

Rose O’Neill lived her life a liberated woman. She didn’t have to work at it. It came to her instinctively due to the confidence she had in her own abilities. She did, however, work at liberating others so they might choose how best to live their lives.