Eleanor plaisted abbott biography of abraham

Home / Celebrity Biographies / Eleanor plaisted abbott biography of abraham

She created the skrims for The Emperor Jones, which were used by Hedgerow for many years. Several books were published as illustrated by Elenore Plaisted Abbott and Helen Alden Knipe (later Carpenter). She produced illustrations for Harper's Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and Scribner's magazines.

She is reputed to have painted her house on Possum Hollow road a Bermuda pink – quite unusual for the day! She also studied in Paris, where her work was exhibited at the Academie des Beaux Arts. Later in her life, Abbott remarked her favorite pieces were created under his guidance. She also did illustrations for many books, including Kidnapped and Treasure Island (Robert Lewis Stevenson), Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss), Old Fashioned Girl (Louisa May Alcott) and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior, and to help overcome that stereotype women became "increasingly vocal and confident" in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer "New Woman". Elenore came to Rose Valley in 1911. The best of which  is “The Mother” and was published in the Christmas  number, 1916, I think.

She studied art at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and in Paris, France at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, where her work was exhibited. She would take photographs for later oil paintings, something illustrators were known to do. She also helped to establish the Rose Valley swimming pool by donating land, and in 1928 she sold several of her paintings to finance the construction of the pool.

She was a member of the Philadelphia Water Color Club and the Plastic Club of Philadelphia.

Scribner’s is bringing out a book  of my pictures for Grimms Fairy Tales this Christmas in the same  set that Wyeth and Parrish have made famous. My later  work has been illustrating Keat’s poems, which have found no  publisher as yet, though they are my best work, and doing color  illustrations for Scribner’s Magazine.

As educational opportunities were made more available in the 19th-century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Evan Nagel Wolf, in the 1919 supplement of International Studio, wrote “Elenore Abbott loves her fairy tales, and no child who receives such a book will be disappointed… Elenore Abbott is not on the surface a clever artist; her active, vigorous yet idealist’s mind is brought into subjection and guides the long sensitive fingers that hold the water color brush.”

She married C.Yarnall Abbott and in 1907, they had one child, a daughter, Marjorie “Peggy” Abbott, who later married Robert Harvey.

Elenore Abbott  loves her fairy tales as one who never grew up, and no child  who receives such a book will be disappointed… Elenore Abbott  is not a surface clever Artist; her active, vigorous yet idealist’s  mind is brought into subjection and guides the long sensitive  fingers that hold the water color brush.
References: Bénézit;  Fielding; Young; Art Annual 26, 1919; International  Studio 67, 1919; DAM files.