Ida Rentoul Outhwaite: Fit For A Queen

Good morning readers, and happy Sunday! I hope you had a fantastic weekend. I spent 80% of the day yesterday working on my Etsy shop – creating new stickers, working on my recycled mailers with my wife, and reading about performing the body in art. However, at around 6:30, my wife and I managed to sneak away from the apartment, hop into the car and drive to the nearby beach.

It was already sunset when we got there. The tide was all the way in, but slowly deciding it was ready to go out. We sat wrapped in a blanket in the dusky fading light and enjoyed a last kiss of summer. It was, in a sense, magical.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the comings and goings and to-do lists of your day. Try to remember the truly important things.

To that end, I just want to share with you some painting by artist/illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (also known as Ida Sherbourne Outhwaite), born in 1888, Australia.

Outhwaite’s earliest works were published when she was just 15 years old. She and her sister, Annie Rattray Rentoul, compiled a short illustrated fairytale, The Fairies of Fern Gully, (written by her sister under a pseudonym), which was accepted for publication in The New Idea in 1904 (a then brand-new weekly magazine for women, still in print today).

Outhwaite illustrated several more stories, written mostly by her sister but also by her husband. She held a couple one-woman exhibitions, and her work was collected by high society such as Queen Mary (of England) and the Princess of Greece.

Although she was at first celebrated for her delicate watercolors, post World War II, Outhwaite’s name all but faded away from popular culture. So why is she in this blog, a feminist blog? Outhwaite is one of many early female illustrators who did actually make a name for herself, despite the sexism of her time. She was able to make a small career not as an artist, but as an illustrator. Yet, in a world where everyone knows the name Arthur Rackham, why are illustrators like Outhwaite or Margaret Tarrant, May Gibbs, Cicely Mary Barker (the list goes on) forgotten?

Link Love:

• Cited Biography
• Australian Dictionary Biography
• Original Prints
• Ida Rentoul Outhwaite by Robert Holden