Celebrating Children
Over the years, I have shared the art of Helen Hyde several times. Hyde was a printmaker, an illustrator, and a painter who created beautiful depictions of children and of mothers and children. I have shared A Summer Girl, The Secret, Mother and Child, and New Year’s Day in Tokyo.
Hyde was born in Lima, New York, in 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil War. She and her wealthy parents moved to Oakland, California, where she received her first formal art training. After her father’s death when Helen was 14, she and her mother moved first to San Francisco and later to Philadelphia. There she enrolled in Wellesley School for Girls. After graduation, she returned to San Francisco and began further art training. In 1890 at age 22, Helen Hyde went to Europe where she studied with artists in Berlin and Paris.
Helen Hyde,
Courtesy of the George Grantham Bain Collection,
Library of Congress
At the time, many artists and art lovers in Paris were interested in the art of Japan. They had a lasting impact on Helen and her future art. She returned to San Francisco and began painting subjects in its Chinatown. In 1899 she traveled to Japan. There she learned printmaking. For 15 years, Helen Hyde traveled between Japan and San Francisco, creating many woodblock prints of Japanese mothers and children, particularly those living in the village of Nikko, Japan. She also traveled to China, India, and Mexico.
Helen Hyde passed away in San Francisco in 1919, leaving behind a record of the lives of mothers and children, especially those in that little Japanese village. Join me in enjoying my mini-exhibition, Celebrating Children, while remembering to celebrate your own, now and in memory’s eye.
Hide and Seek, 1897
The Cat and the Cherub, 1897
O Tsuyu San, 1900
The Mirror, 1904
Marching as to War, 1904
Feeding the Bunnies, 1912
A Mexican Rebecca, 1912
Feeding the Geese, 1918
Her Bit (War Time), 1918
Jesus is our example of how to cherish children.
Then some children were brought to Him
so that He might lay His hands on them and pray;
and the disciples rebuked them.
But Jesus said, “Let the children alone,
and do not hinder them from coming to Me;
for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
After laying His hands on them, He departed from there.
Matthew 19:13-15
All prints courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Hyde Gillette in memory of Mabel Hyde Gillette and Edwin Fraser Gillette except The Cat and the Cherub which is courtesy of the Library of Congress and Her Bit (War Time) which is courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.