Featured Acquisition: Coles Phillips

Coles Phillips, Know all men by these presents, ca. 1910. Gouache, watercolor and charcoal over graphite under drawing on illustration board. Published as cover illustration for Life, January 27, 1910. Bendiner Fund Purchase. LC-DIG-ppmsca-01605 catalog record/rights information

This drawing represents an excellent example of Phillips' unique "fadeaway girl," a design tour-de-force in which he uses negative space brilliantly to compose a dynamic, innovative, and attractive image in which the main emphasis falls upon the head and hands of the beauty. In this and other examples, he depicts the main part of the figure--usually the clothing--so that it blends into the background.

Coles Phillips (1880-1927) developed his idealistic portrayals of American women in the early 20th century after the Gibson Girl appeared. Phillips' Girls graced the covers of Life magazine, Good Housekeeping, and other magazines, and were rivaled in popularity and beauty only by those of Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944).