![Illustration of an abstracted urban setting with dark, moody colors suggesting nighttime - black, deep mauve, soft emerald green, light grey, white. Filling the right side of the foreground is a black building or wall with bricks outlined in purple. A white sign near the top reads [CHEVAL]. Angling into the background from the bottom right to the middle of the left edge is a diagonal slash of grey-white sidewalk, with street below and lawn above. The street is deep black, with a roughly-textured purple and white arch shape in the bottom left corner. The lawn is green at left, sharply shading into black at right. In the upper left corner of the scene, a pair of white-clad figures walk across the lawn toward abstracted trees with flat green foliage and fat black trunks. The figures appear to be a woman in a long dress and young woman in a shorter dress, casting an angled pale grey shadow behind them. To the right of the trees, a purplish fence paling is marked out against the black background, with a white-framed window in a dark red building rising above a black wall. ['Elsie and the Child,' Arnold Bennett] is pencilled at the bottom right edge of the paper.]( https://images.collection.cooperhewitt.org/346390_532a84b4d796f846_b.jpg
"Print, Illustration for Elsie and the Child")
There is one other image of this object. See our image rights statement.
Object Timeline
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1929 |
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1963 |
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2015 |
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2019 |
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2021 |
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2024 |
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Print, Illustration for Elsie and the Child
This is a Print. It was designed by E. McKnight Kauffer and written by Arnold Bennett and published by Cassell & Co. and printed by The Curwen Press. It is dated 1929 and we acquired it in 1963. Its medium is lithograph with hand-colored additions in brush and gouache . It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.
Kauffer enjoyed projects with contemporary writers and sought out novelist Arnold Bennett for a collaboration. For Bennett’s Elsie and the Child, Kauffer lets the reader peer into walled gardens and curtained windows as an eyewitness to a narrative of class tension in the household of a doctor in London. At Curwen Press, a team of women artisans executed the illustrations. They used stencils with gouache, creating rich, textured areas of color with no outlines.
This object was
donated by
Mrs. Edward McKnight Kauffer.
It is credited Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer.
- Print, Illustration for Elsie and the Child
- offset lithograph, hand-colored additions in brush and gouache on paper.
- Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer.
- 1963-39-331
- Drawing, Illustration for Elsie and the Child
- brush and watercolor, gouache on paper.
- Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer.
- 1963-39-329
- Print, Illustration for Elsie and the Child
- offset lithograph, hand-colored additions in brush and gouache on paper.
- Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer.
- 1963-39-333
Our curators have highlighted 2 objects that are related to this one.
- Drawing, Illustration for Elsie and the Child
- graphite, brush and watercolor, gouache on paper.
- Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer.
- 1963-39-334
- Print, Illustration for Elsie and the Child
- offset lithograph, hand-colored additions in brush and gouache on paper.
- Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer.
- 1963-39-336
Its dimensions are
24.9 × 19.2 cm (9 13/16 × 7 9/16 in.)
It is inscribed
Inscribed in graphite, at lower right corner: "Elsie and the Child" Arnold Bennett
Cite this object as
Print, Illustration for Elsie and the Child; Written by Arnold Bennett (British, 1867–1931); Designed by Edward McKnight Kauffer (American, active England, 1890–1954); Printed by The Curwen Press (United Kingdom); Published by Cassell & Co.; USA; lithograph with hand-colored additions in brush and gouache ; 24.9 × 19.2 cm (9 13/16 × 7 9/16 in.); Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer; 1963-39-332
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer.
