Gertrude A. Kay, illustrator, author, and designer
Gertrude Alice Kay (1884-1939) was one of the illustrators from the so-called Golden Age. She mostly worked for magazines and children's books where she also wrote several stories. She was born in Ohio as the second of three daughters in a relatively affluent family which supported her artistic aspirations. Her hometown Alliance provided her with basic education and she returned there after her studies were finished to establish a studio where she worked for the rest of her life.
Gertrude received the majority of her formal education in Philadelphia, the center of illustration in America where so many talents realized their potential under the leadership of Howard Pyle. She was contemporary to Elizabeth Shippen Green, Violet Oakley, and Jessie Wilcox Smith, among others, and actively participated in different organizations like the Authors' League of America, Association of Women Painters and Sculptors of New York, and The Plastic Club of Philadelphia. There she didn't only meet with other artists but participated in improving women's role in society.
She had written and illustrated about then children's books and so-called beginner novels. The most important of them are probably The Fairy Who Believed in Human Beings (1918) where she displays all her imaginative perception of the fairy world, and Adventures in Geography (1930), a result of her travels overseas. She also illustrated more than twenty books by other authors where we should mention at least At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol, and a series of books by Sara Addington featuring life on Pudding Lane with young Santa Claus. Magazines were another important source of income for her. She contributed illustrations and paper dolls to Good Housekeeping, Woman's World, Ladies' Home Journal, The American Girl, Everybody's Magazine, Outlook, Pictorial Review, Country Gentleman, Designer, and St. Nicholas.
Her originals are part of several reputable collections like the Delaware Art Museum, the Boston Public Library, and the Library of Congress. She died in a car accident.
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