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Frances L. Hooper Collection of Kate Greenaway

Kate Greenaway's art enchanted the Victorians in England and her vision is still enjoyed. She created an idyllic vision of childhood and nature.

Kate Greenaway was born on 17 March, 1846 at Hoxton New Town in the heart of London's industrialized East End. She began art lessons at the age of twelve and later raced through twenty-three stages of a course at the local Finsbury School of Art, where she won several book prizes and medals. Later, Greenaway's artistic vision was influenced by John Ruskin who appreciated Kate's figures of rose-wreathed girls in long white dresses.

Her books, cards, and almanack series show Greenaway's sensitivity of line and instinct for figure composition. The decorative effect of her innocent children in garden settings holding nosegays, garlands and wreaths is characteristic of the enchanting appeal of Kate's world.

Her early books represent innovative examples of a color printing process perfected by Edmund Evans. The original design was photographed onto wooden blocks which were engraved for each of the three colors used. The blocks were aligned so that the colors overlapped, thus producing a new series of tones.

Kate Greeenaway's world of eternal spring is best described in her own words. She is describing to Ruskin a scene that haunted her all her life: "Go and stand in a shady-lane-at least, a wide country road, with high hedges, and wide grassy places at the sides. The hedges are all hawthorns blossoming, in the grass grow great patches of speedwell, stitchwort, and daisies. You look through the gates into fields full of buttercups, and the whole of it is filled with sunlight... Now do you see my little picture, and me as a dark girl in a pink frock and hat, looking about at things a good deal, and thoughts filled up with such wonderful things-everything seeming wonderful and life to go on forever just as it was."

The Kate Greenway Collection is housed in the Fine and Rare Book Room, Special Collections of the Hunt Library, Carnegie Mellon University. Frances Hooper was the generous donor responsible for the collection.