“A Widow and Her Friends”
“A Widow and Her Friends” is an ink on paper drawing by the American artist and illustrator, Charles Dana Gibson, from 1900.
This piece was first published in Life magazine in the December 13, 1900 edition, on page 514. It was published with the accompanying text, “Mrs. Diggs is Alarmed at Discovering what she Imagines to be a Snare that Threatens the Safety of her Only Child. Mr. Diggs does Not Share his Wife’s Anxiety.”
In this piece, a young man is awkwardly attempting to flirt with a beautiful and iconic woman known as a “Gibson Girl”. The woman is dressed in widow’s attire, signaling the recent death of her husband. Her mother is alarmed at the obvious attention her daughter is receiving so soon after her husband’s death. As the title suggests, the young woman’s father is not as concerned.
Gibson also published this image in a standalone book titled A Widow and Her Friends in 1901. This book was his sixth publication of his Gibson Girl work in a portfolio and included 84 black and white illustrations following the story of a recent widower. He illustrated aspects of the woman’s journey as she progresses from mourning the recent death of her husband to the recovery of her independence. Interestingly, Gibson’s women are frequently depicted as much more intelligent than their male companions. The men are often goofy and clumsy, trying their hardest to get the women’s attention and approval. Many of Gibson’s illustrations were able to show a range of emotion and activity seen in everyday life with such ease.
The Gibson Girl was created to represent the idealized independent and beautiful American women of the new twentieth century. Gibson’s creation was extremely popular and remained so for almost 20 years. The Gibson Girl was tall, slender, with a very small waist and curvy hips, with hair piled high on her head in the fashionable bouffant of the day. She was very stylish, always wearing the newest fads, but was also athletic, and was often shown swimming and bicycling. After World War I, due to the changing social climate and women’s liberation movement, the popularity of the Gibson Girl started to fade.
Original prints of “A Widow and Her Friends” are currently located in many collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in the United States.
For more on Charles Dana Gibson, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
