Margaret Armstrong

1867-1944 American

Jugendstil-Buchcover und Wildblumenführer

Margaret Neilson Armstrong was a 20th-century American designer, illustrator, and author. She is best known for her book covers in the Art Nouveau style. She also wrote and illustrated the first comprehensive guide to wildflowers of the American west, Field Book of Western Wild Flowers (1915). In later life she wrote mystery novels and biographies. Margaret Neilson Armstrong was born on September 24, 1867, in New York City, the daughter of American diplomat and stained glass artist Maitland Armstrong and his wife Helen, who was a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant and a niece of Hamilton Fish. Her six siblings included Helen Maitland Armstrong (1869–1948), who followed in her father's footsteps to become a stained glass artist, and Hamilton Fish Armstrong, a magazine editor. She began her career as a designer in the 1880s, working initially for A.C. McClurg and later for other publishers as well. She designed more than 270 book covers and book bindings, about half of which were for Scribner's. She worked in the Art Nouveau style and favored plant-related motifs, bold colors, gold stamping, and often slightly asymmetrical designs—an unusual combination that helped to distinguish her among her peers. Authors for whom she designed several covers include Frances Hodgson Burnett, Florence L. Barclay, George Washington Cable, Charles Dickens, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry van Dyke, and Myrtle Reed. She has been called "the most productive and accomplished American book designer of the 1890s and early 1900s", and her work is often compared to that of her contemporary Alice Cordelia Morse. Her monogram appears on many covers after 1895; it is a simple 'MA' in upper case with the 'M' slightly overlapping the 'A'. Armstrong reduzierte um 1913 die Gestaltung von Bucheinbänden, da Schutzumschläge in Mode kamen, und wandte sich dem Schreiben ihrer eigenen Bücher zu. (Ihr charakteristischer Stil war jedoch so erfolgreich, dass Verlage daraufhin speziell Künstler einstellten, um ihren Look nachzuahmen.) Als begeisterte Naturforscherin spiegelte Armstrongs Leidenschaft für natürliche Formen ihr Interesse an der Botanik und insbesondere an Wildblumen wider. In der Zeit von 1911 bis 1914 reiste und campierte sie im Westen der Vereinigten Staaten und in Kanada und wurde eine der ersten Frauen, die den Grund des Grand Canyon erreichten. Dort entdeckte sie mehrere Blumenarten, die von Botanikern noch nicht identifiziert worden waren. Diese und viele andere Arten beschreibt sie detailliert in ihrem Field Book of Western Wild Flowers (1915). Mit seinen 550 Illustrationen (davon 48 in Farbe) gilt ihr Field Book als der erste umfassende Führer zu diesem Thema. In ihren Sechzigern und Siebzigern schrieb sie drei von der Kritik gelobte Kriminalromane – Murder in Stained Glass (1939), The Man with No Face (1940) und The Blue Santo Murder Mystery (1941) – sowie zwei Biografien, Fanny Kemble: A Passionate Victorian (1938) und Trelawny: A Man's Life (1940). Außerdem vollendete sie die Memoiren ihres Vaters. Sie starb 1944 in New York City.