Eleanor B. Campbell (1894-1986)
was an early-twentieth-century illustrator of children's books and portrait artist.
Education and career
Campbell was from
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
,
and spent part of her childhood in Seattle, Washington.
Both her parents had studied art, and one of her sisters was Elizabeth Campbell Warhanik, an artist and one of the founders of
Women Painters of Washington.
Campbell studied at the Sorbonne.
She illustrated children's books, especially for the
P. F. Volland Company and
Scott Foresman
Scott Foresman was an elementary educational publisher for PreK through Grade 6 in all subject areas. Its titles are now owned by Savvas Learning Company which formed from former Pearson Education K12 division. The old Glenview headquarters o ...
. A review of ''Roberta Goes Adventuring'' (P.F. Volland, 1931) described Campbell as "the artist who knows all about little boys and girls as well as little black dogs with little pink tongues."
Campbell was the first illustrator of the ''
Dick and Jane
''Dick and Jane'' are the two main characters created by Zerna Sharp for a series of basal readers written by William S. Gray to teach children to read. The characters first appeared in the ''Elson-Gray Readers'' in 1930 and continued in a sub ...
'' series of
beginning readers created by
Zerna Sharp.
Her watercolors
for the series were intended to show "scenes as a child might see the world",
including everyday activities
such as when "a preschooler tries to give a teddy bear a drink at a water fountain or dress up in their parents' clothes or help mom take the laundry down from the line before the rain starts."
Campbell based her illustrations on photographs
she took of her friends' and relations' children.
An exhibition of 50 of Campbell's original artworks for the series, held at the
Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, was so popular that it was extended from the planned three months to seventeen months.
The ''Dick and Jane'' illustrations have been criticised for reinforcing class, race and gender stereotypes.
Campbell's illustrations was also featured in advertising for
Kellogg's and
Wheatena
Wheatena is an American high-fiber, toasted-wheat cereal that originated on Mulberry Street in New York City, New York, , when a small bakery owner began roasting whole wheat, grinding it, and packaging it for sale under this brand name.
Hist ...
cereals.
Campbell lived in Seattle after retiring, and died there in 1986.
Selected publications
*''School Days''. Whitman, 1931.
*Raymond, Margaret Thomsen. ''Roberta Goes Adventuring.'' Illustrated by Eleanor Campbell. Joliet: P. F. Volland Company, 1931. Happy Children series.
*White, Jessie Penniman. ''Top O' the Morning''. Joliet: P. F. Volland Company, 1931.
*Gray, William S. ''We Look and See''. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1940.
*Gray, William S. ''We Come and Go''. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1946 & 1947.
*Campbell, Eleanor, William S. Gray, Paul R. Hanna, Genevieve Anderson Hoyt, Walter Oschman, and John Osebold. ''Guidebook for a Social Studies Book B "Hello, David"''. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1948.
*O'Brien, J. A. ''Fun with John and Jean''. Toronto: W. J. Gage, 1952.
*Gray, William S. ''The New We Look and See''. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1956.
*Campbell, Eleanor -, Elizabeth Rider Montgomery, Dorthy Baruch, and William S. Gray. ''The World of Dick and Jane and Friends''. NY: Scott, Foresman, and Company (Grosset & Dunlap), 2004. (compilation)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Eleanor
American children's book illustrators
American women illustrators
1894 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American artists
Artists from Philadelphia
Artists from Seattle
20th-century American women artists