Sarah Noble Ives

Sarah Noble Ives (1864-1944) saw an author, historian, illustrator, and painter, not necessary in this order. She was born near Detroit and she got her first artistic education at Port Huron High School and Mrs. Edna Chafee Noble’s Training School for Elocution and Literature, both in Michigan as well. Then she continued art studies in New York and Paris. After return in the USA, she opened her first studio in New York, later moved to Boston for a couple of years before returning to New York. She spent her last years with her three (also unmarried) sisters in Altadena, California, where she wrote a history of the town.



Here are a few more facts from her life:

- Edna Chaffee Noble, a suffragette, was her role model and kind of foster parent (they lived together for some time), who helped her at professional, personal and artistic development, including giving her the first job (teaching gymnastics) at Detroit Training School. Edna Chaffee Noble was one of the first women who demanded (successfully) equal pay for women, what she achieved in the field of education, just like at approximate women achieved equal pay in the field of book illustration. But Sarah Noble Ives as a freelancer still didn't want to risk too much and signed most of her commercial works simply as Noble Ives, not disclosing her gender to an uneducated audience.

- Her major source of income were illustrations for magazines (Sun, NY Herald Tribune, McClure’s, Boston Globe, Boston Journal) and books (including book covers), which she also wrote on several occasions. Yet, her true love was landscaped in watercolors and especially oils. She said oil was her love, the black and white illustration just bread and butter.

- While she indisputably showed a lot of talent at writing poems (Songs of the Shining Way, 1899), stories (The Story of the Teddy Bear, 1907), illustrations (books, magazines, book covers), and paintings (oil and watercolor), her probably most popular work became her history of Altadena, California, published in 1938. Her home in Altadena (all sisters together bought a cottage and some land) is part of local historical tours in Altadena.

Comments