More Regarding Gladys

There is a famous line in a famous hymn by Isaac Watts: "Time like an ever rolling stream bears all its sons away" (That's the line, the hymn is "A Mighty Fortress is Our God.") It occurs to me often, though not a very fashionable thought, and certainly when I consider what has become of Gladys. (Leave it to me, with however many generations of dour northern ancestry, to find the gloomy side of collecting old pictures and story books).

Gladys was famous in her day with the kind of fame that I think has a modern day parallel with Isaak Mizrahi or (at least once upon a time) Terence Conran. She was a brand. Her name appeared in large letters above the titles of the books she illutrated and sometimes wrote. In Gladys's 1977 obituatary, her friend, "the Hon. Lady Fisher," notes that in the 1930s it was "the in thing to wear a Peto dress." I think, however, given her times, her intelligence, and an innate dignity that comes through, she recognized the vanity of this. In the aforementioned interview in the Empire Annual For Australian Girls, she talks about how she continued to attend high society events, though bored to tears by them, to keep up her sketching skills. (see my post on Gladys Peto Proto Professional Woamn).

Gladys made her reputation during World War I by drawing caricatures and banners for the society magazine, The Sketch. (I will post a few of those when I can. They are among her best work.) The Sketch was a kind of cross between Town & Country and People Magazine. Gossip, or gossipy columns, reviews of popular plays, dewey photographs of the gentry with news of engagements etc. (Any academic with an interest in cultural history might find several thesis topics in The Sketch.) She also gained fame early on by illustrating the works of our own (American) Louisa May Alcott.

Her own writings came later, in the twenties and thirties, and mostly accompanied Children's books. Many of these she wrote herself (Gladys Peto's Children's Annual for instance made one or more appearances. The scholarship here remains to be done). Among my favorite of her early works is a compilation of stories and poems illustrated by her and written by her and several other bright lights of Great Britain the the 1920s, The China Cow.

Among the contributors were the immortal Sewell Stokes, Christine Jope-Slade, Berta Ruck or C. Lindsay Emmerson (does that last name sound familiar?). While Virginia Woolf and H.G. Wells and other denizens of Gladys's world maintain a hold on our imaginations and some name recognition, the contributors to The China Cow have bubbled under that aforementioned ever-rolling stream. Berta Ruck was a famous novelist at the time The China Cow appeared. She wrote more than 100 books in her day and was married to another then famous writer, Oliver Onions.(Berta was also the brunt of a disparaging remark from Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway, and that is now one of her chief claims to fame). Christine Jope-Slade who wrote plays and screenplays during the 1920s and '30s including the unforgettable, The Mad Hatters and Britannia of Billingsgate . Sewell Stokes is an interesting figure. Knowing his association with Gladys I bought his memoirs, Personal Glimpses. In it, he confesses to having asked Gladys to marry him (he had contacted her about providing some artwork for his college (Cambridge somewhere) magazine. He beggared himself to take her to tea, commenting that she had the most beautiful hands in England. She politely declined his offer of marriage and he tried hard to forget her. A task made extremely difficult by the fact that Gladys Peto images stared down at him from every " 'bus and tube." (He referred specifically to the Allenbury's Food poster that appears in post card form on this blog.) Another aside, this is one of the really fun things about collecting, finding things like this. Stokes wrote many books, screenplays and plays, including a movie about Isadora Duncan. According to his memoirs (written when he was still a young man in the tone of a sarcastic undergraduate) Peto called him shortly after she refused him to tell him she was engaged. The man she accepted, Colonel C. Lindsay Emmerson, who, as noted, was also a contributor to The China Cow.

Next time I get an hour to myself, I'll tell you all more. I am sure there are legions of you out there panting to know more! (Did someone say "sarcastic undergraduate?")

An Image Famous on the Buses and Subways of London in the 1920s. More on this later.

Peto Postcard - WW I

Gladys Peto: 1920s Proto Professional Woman

Gladys Emma Peto was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire outside London, 1890. As near as I can tell, she was born at the at the low-to-middling-end of the British upper class.

Peto was famous in London and perhaps throughout the UK and even throughout the Empire in the 1920s and '30s Anyone who lived in London and got around at all would have encountered Peto's work. Her advertising illustations were prominently featured in magazines and posters. She illustrated books for children and wrote some of the stories herself. She designed dresses and theatre scenery.

This being the long Thanksgiving weekend I have had a few minutes to indulge my inner-collector and I have been organizing my neglected collection of Petoiana. Yesterday, as I framed and hung up an advertisement I bought last week on Ebay for the new (in 1929) Gladys Peto Nursery Ware collection of the Tuscan Pottery at Stoke-on-Trent, it occurred to me that I have probably gathered the largest collection of Peto artifiacts anywhere. OK, I know. Big whoop. Who else cares? Well, there are at least a few, judging by the attention her books get on Ebay. And, of course, there may be some descendants out there - I hope there are - with crates of her things. But in my five or so years of collecting, which included a year of hosting an expensive web site devoted to Peto, I have not encountered these descendants. I suspect that if she had children (and it has been oddly hard to learn this basic fact) they would be in their 80s now. Grandchildren likely in their 50s. Since Gladys died in 1977, her grandchildren would have known her well. If any of you get to this Blog, send me a comment!

Since dropping my web site two years ago I have always felt a little bad. It got a couple of hundred visitors, not that many really, but I felt like a keeper of the flame who had dropped the torch. Really, at over $200 a year, I couldn't keep it up in good conscience. I also was not sufficiently technically proficient to transfer its contents to some free web space. So, it perished. But now, I have this Blog and this being Sunday and a long weekend and my kids still asleep, here, for your consumption you dear wide world, is my bit of Peto scholarship.

As noted, she was born in 1890 and died in 1977, in Ireland. She attended Maidenhead High School and art classes in the town before heading off to London to study at art school there. She married C. Lindsay Emmerson, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and with him during the 1920s she traveled with him to Malta, Cyprus and Egypt. Among the most desirable Peto books are the guide books she wrote for English "Sojourners" to those places (i.e., long-term residents). Malta and Cyprus and The Egypt of the Sojourner were published by J.M Dent in London for their Outward Bound Library.

Peto's work remains appealing now for its attractive and inventive art deco style, clearly influenced by Aubrey Beardsley. At its best she captures something magical of the world of childhood and cutting-edge in the world of fashion. Aside from her work, her biography is also full of interest. Though she came of age before World War I, she took a daring career path and became a successful commercial artist. She was not a Bloomsbury radical (they didn't tend to marry army colonels) but neither was she a typical woman of her day. Reading Peto's works, especially her travel book on Egypt, it's clear that she played the part of Colonel's wife as much as she devoted herself to her work.

Sometime in the 1920s the Empire Annual for Australian Girls published "Poster Art Work for Girls, A Talk With Miss Gladys Peto the Well-Known Poster Artist." (The Empire Annual is, itself a worthy subject of study, combining fiction and practical advice to help girls of the time make their way in the world. The annual with the Peto interview includes tips for the "the Family Failure" on how to get along).

Peto there discusses her beginnings. Her family was not especially artisitic, except for herself. As a girl in Maidenhead, she would go out "in her father's trap" and notice interesting people along the way. She would get home and sketch them. From thence to High School then Art School. After a few years learning academic techniques, she started beating the pavement to various editors and publishers with her sketches expecting instant success. She didn't find it but sold two little drawings. It was a beginning. "And [her] family's somewhat discouraging queries as to how I was going to live on that amount did not debar [her] from trying further." In keeping with the Empire Annual's mandate to offer guidance, Gladys lets the reader know that a girl with training, talent and inventiveness might well be able to make her way "there is a good living to be made from this particular type of artistic endeavor." No figures are mentioned, but the interviewer, one George A. Wade, notes that "several people are aware that this young lady, as one of the best-known depicters of "fashionable life," and a designer of posters which attract much public attantion, makes an annual income which many men in very high positions might well envy."

Well, the kids are up. More next time. I will try to upload a little Peto artwork for your consideration.

Jay Peak is open and I think today's the day to start my little girl on a snowboard!

Still here

One of my favorite movies is "7 Up" - can't think of the name of the filmmaker. It's a really fascinating documentary involving interviews, every seven years, of a group of people who gave the first interviews when they were seven years old. It occurred to me watching the most recent version a couple of years back that this must be sort of like how God sees us - a lifetime compressed. It started as an exploration of class in England and its effects. It's still about that but I think it's more about the trajectory of life - perfect somehow, though full of pain and struggle. Adam and Even banished from the Garden but not forsaken. Each person followed (and a few of the stiffer ones have dropped out) struck me as lovely somehow - so worthy of compassion. They're all well up into their 40s now, I think, and have learned the lessons of life. If you haven't seen it, get it.

Why am I talking about this? Because I have been absent from this Blog for year. Just too busy with my crazy job as a divorce lawyer in Burlington. I have never had a more difficult job - but in all the trauma, time has flown. Time does fly on us. So here I am back again. Physically, more of a ruin, having neglected friends and family too much. (I have a pile of unsent birthday cards and some dear relatives that I haven't seen or spoke to or corresponded with in more than a year.) Another deep lesson learned by blogging, or failing to blog.

The Latest

It's way past my bed time but I checked back here and though still comment-free I'll assume one or two friendly readers are on tenterhooks wondering what has happened to Woolfoot here at the Last House during the last six weeks.

Well, we're all still here. The House is generally occupied by the Woolfoot Husband and Woolfoot Kid 1 (girl, 7) and Kid 2(Boy, 4). I had hoped to bring Kids to the luxe condo for the end of the school year but none of the preschools in which I had any interest had a spot. I didn't like to split up Kid 1 and Kid 2, so they will finish their school year here at the friendly Catholic School in Newport. I have been driving back and forth to Burlington most days but spending a couple nights a week as a bachelorette at the condo. The first few nights like that were sort of glorious (take out and a DVD!). It would be an impoverished existence, however, if it were a long-term thing. I guess that's for another post.

Speaking of preschools and schools, the Woolfoot kinder have long experience at their Catholic school here in the Northeast Kingdom. It runs from pre-school to grade 8. The building is a cold-war relic (it still has the Fallout Shelter sign on the outside wall) but the people are nice. I am not a Catholic but my husband is, by heritage anyway, and I respect the Institution although I can't quite assimilate some of its unique beliefs. Anyway, the kids are, after 4 years there, wholly known quantities. I raced up to the school from Burlington last week to the [interminable] spring concert and managed to see Kid 1 sing her three songs with grades 1-3 and then spent the rest of the evening chasing Kid 2 around the halls. Amazing how many people know Kid 2. He is a charasmatic sort of individual and not without his charms. One thing I am little sad about is that he will miss his year with my favorite preschool teacher. She is just finishing her college degree, I think, and has a grown family. I am always reminded of one of the stalwarts Country Music stars when I look at her, like Loretta Lynn. She is so energetic and uncomplaining. Kid 1 prospered in her class.

I think a little exposure to Normal America and the middle class environment of Burlington will be a good thing for them, although I am not without my misgivings. I doubt that they will be known as they are known now anyway. I'll keep you posted.

One-Trick Pony?

Jeez. I just re-read a bunch of my postings and I am a regular Johnny One Note!(Vermont blah blah blah). Sorry if I have been boring you (are "you" out there? I seem not to have attracted a single comment so I don't know if anyone other than a couple of friends have even looked at this spot).

In case any "you" are wondering the Burlington condo deal seems to have been sealed. I took the kids to the little North Troy Library after school yesterday. On the way out of the building (combo fire house, library, police department and clerk's office) our village clerk, Nancy Allen, stopped me to say my new landlord had called her to check us out. Very clever. As anyone who lives in small town Vermont knows, village clerks know everything about every body. My landlord is a native Vermonter. Why bother with references when village clerks are available? Well, Nancy is a neighbor and if we had a fan club she might be its president (it would be a small club, naturally). So she told him, of course, we were the best people in town (her exact words). If he won't rent to us after that I don't know what would persuade him. Only in Vermont! OOPS. There I go again. OK. I am going to shut up and get dressed now.