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Rose O'Neill collection

Call Number

PR 369

Date

1900-1953, undated, inclusive

Creator

O'Neill, Rose Cecil, 1874-1944
Beals, Jessie Tarbox

Extent

2.21 Linear feet in one document box and two flat files

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

The collection includes a small number of documents concerning the artist and poet, Rose Cecil O'Neill (1874-1944), best known for her creation of the Kewpie cartoon character. Among the documents are eight original drawings by O'Neill, three photographs of O'Neill (one of which was taken by Jessie Tarbox Beals), and the checklist of O'Neill's 1922 exhibition at Wildenstein Galleries in New York. Other documents are programs and other print matter with O'Neill's drawings and poetry, clippings, and a reproduction of a poster illustrated with O'Neill's Kewpies advocating women's suffrage.

Biographical / Historical

Rose Cecil O'Neill (1874-1944) was an American artist, author and poet perhaps best known for her creation in 1909 of the cartoon character Kewpies. O'Neill was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Nebraska. In her youth she took an avid and successful interest in drawing; as a teenager she worked as an illustrator for Omaha newspapers. Recognizing her talent and potential, O'Neill's father took her to New York City in 1893, where she joined the staff of Puck. O'Neill's father returned to the Midwest, settling in the Ozarks of Missouri on a property he called Bonniebrook. O'Neill would visit Bonniebrook often over the years, eventually purchasing it and living the last years of her life there.

Through the first decade of the 1900s, O'Neill continued to work as an illustrator, including for a novel of her own and for those of her second husband, Harry Leon Wilson, an assistant editor at Puck (they married in 1902 and divorced in 1907). In 1909, O'Neill's Kewpie creation premiered in a comic strip in Ladies' Home Journal, later appearing in Good Housekeeping and elsewhere. In 1912 a German firm began manufacturing Kewpie dolls, and O'Neill traveled to Europe to oversee production. The Kewpie success made her a millionaire. Among the properties she purchased with her earnings was an apartment on Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, consistent with her emerging reputation as a bohemian and suffragist.

Over time, the nature of O'Neill's work shifted, becoming more experimental. She returned to Europe, staying in Paris from 1921 to 1926. Her work was exhibited in Paris in 1921 and at the Wildenstein Galleries in New York in 1922. By the late 1920s, though, she had returned to the United States. With the Kewpie craze faded, tastes in commercial art shifting, and the impact of the Great Depression, O'Neill's fortune slowly disappeared and by the late 1930s she had returned permanently to Missouri, where she died of heart failure in 1944.

(The above was based largely on O'Neill's Wikipedia entry.)

Arrangement

The collection is arranged by document type.

For the drawings, titles enclosed in "quotation marks" are original titles found on the drawing. Titles in [brackets] were supplied by the processing archivist.

Scope and Contents

The collection includes a small number of documents concerning the artist and poet, Rose Cecil O'Neill. Eight original drawings by O'Neill are in the collection. One of these is dated January 1900; the others are undated. They are listed individually in the container list.

Three original photographs of O'Neill are in the collection, including one by Jessie Tarbox Beals. Print matter in the collection, such as magazines and an exhibition checklist, include examples of O'Neill's drawings. A reproduction of a poster advocating women's suffrage also includes a drawing by O'Neill.

A copy of a supplement to "Poetry Folio" of 1928 has five of O'Neill's poems. Completing the collection are a few newspaper articles by or about O'Neill.

Access Restrictions

Open to qualified researchers by appointment only.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to reproduce any Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections holdings through publication must be obtained from: Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 270. Fax: (212) 579-8794. rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org

Preferred Citation

The collection should be cited as: Rose O'Neill collection, PR 369, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of the Rose O'Neill Foundation, care of David O'Neill, August 2018.

Related Materials

A photograph of O'Neill reclining on a sofa, taken by Jessie Tarbox Beals, can be found at N-YHS in the Jessie Tarbox Beals photographs (PR 4).

Some works by O'Neill also received by N-YHS in 2018 are held by the N-YHS Museum Department.

Collection processed by

Larry Weimer

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 16:16:00 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: English

Processing Information

Initially processed by archivist Larry Weimer in August 2018, with drawings added in October 2018.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024