Florence Harrison, Jessie Marion King and Phoebe Anna Traquair – women illustrators working in turn-of-the-20th-century Britain – were heavily influenced by the first generation of Pre-Raphaelites in their choice of subject matter and style. Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel, Elizabeth and Christina Rossetti inspired their representations of women, particularly those of “emancipated” women.
Join Pre-Raphaelite Studies Fellow Michelle Reynolds to explore how women illustrators used the illustrations, drawings, watercolors and poetry of the Rossettis to create a new iconography of women in the early 20th century.
Michelle Reynolds is the recipient of the 2023 Amy P. Goldman Fellowship in Pre-Raphaelite Studies, jointly offered by the UD Library, Museums and Press and the Delaware Art Museum. Reynolds is a doctoral student in art history and visual culture and English at the University of Exeter. Her thesis is on the relationship between the professionalization of Victorian and Edwardian women illustrators and cartoonists in Britain, and the emergence of the New Woman feminist ideal and cultural icon.