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Charles Dana Gibson (September 14, 1867 – December 23, 1944) was an American illustrator who created the Gibson Girl, an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent American woman at the turn of the 20th century.
Charles Dana Gibson (born Sept. 14, 1867, Roxbury, Mass., U.S.—died Dec. 23, 1944, New York, N.Y.) was an artist and illustrator, whose Gibson girl drawings delineated the American ideal of femininity at the turn of the century.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal of physical attractiveness as portrayed by the pen-and-ink illustrations of artist Charles Dana Gibson during a 20-year period that spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States.
The drawings of American society by Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944) defined the age contemporaneously and retrospectively from the 1890s through the early 1900s.
Charles Dana Gibson's period of greatest popularity was between 1900 and 1910, although he was productive well into the 1920's. His best-known subject was the proverbial 'Gibson Girl'. She became known as an ideal image of youthful American femininity, the modern woman: athletic, smart, stylish, and desirable, and she sold magazines.
During her lengthy popularity, the Gibson Girl appeared in varied guises that highlighted her talents and interests as well as her beauty and social skills. As her star faded, the Gibson Girl’s active, vital persona paved the way for future icons, such as the flapper of the 1920s.
Acclaimed master of pen-and-ink drawing, Charles Dana Gibson (1867–1944) came of age when the expansion of women's roles and increasing social mobility were changing America.
