September 1892: Kate Greenaway’s Pictures – Exhibition at Messrs Van Baerle’s Rooms

An article on page six of the Glasgow Evening News (Glasgow Evening Post, in The British Newspaper Archive),

on Wednesday the 7th of September, 1892, reads:

 

“KATE GREENAWAY’S PICTURES.

 

Exhibition at Messrs Van Baerle’s Rooms.

 

Kate Greenaway has long been known to us by her dainty illustrations of children’s books with the quaint

mediaeval-modern drawings and light touch in colouring. The pictures shown by Messrs Van Baerle are

illustrations of three books—’Many Old Gardens,’ ‘Language of Flowers,’ ‘Little Anne’—and pretty as the

books are they suffer sadly in comparison. The pen and ink outline is made harsh by reproduction, and the

colours become crude. The cool air in which this fairyland of everyday children plays is hardened by the

process that lifts them from Miss Greenaway’s own work. Her style, however, is happily so familiar that

there is no need to refer to it in detail. The outline is in pen and ink drawing, harsh in comparison with the

pale and tender colour, and it is to this unique combination of drawing and colour that the pictures owe their

charm. The little figures, full of life, and rosebud riant faces, sweet little bonnets, and clinging garments,

set off by suggestions of floral wealth, make up a series of delightful studies of child life. Along with Miss

Greenaway’s pictures are some original examples of Du Maurier’s work.”

 

 

The British Newspaper Archive.

 

 

George Fairfull-Smith, March 2024.