Margaret Armstrong

1867-1944 American

Copertine Art Nouveau e guide floreali

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 ridusse la progettazione di copertine per libri intorno al 1913, quando le sovraccoperte iniziarono a diventare di moda, e si dedicò alla scrittura dei propri libri. (Il suo stile distintivo ebbe tuttavia così tanto successo che gli editori assunsero poi artisti specificamente per imitare il suo look.) Appassionata naturalista, la passione di Armstrong per le forme naturali rifletteva il suo interesse per la botanica e, in particolare, per i fiori selvatici. Nel periodo 1911-1914, viaggiò e campeggiò negli Stati Uniti occidentali e in Canada, diventando una delle prime donne a raggiungere il fondo del Grand Canyon. Lì scoprì diverse specie di fiori che non erano ancora state identificate dai botanici. Descrive dettagliatamente queste e molte altre specie nel suo Field Book of Western Wild Flowers (1915). Con le sue 550 illustrazioni (48 delle quali a colori), il suo Field Book è considerato la prima guida completa sull'argomento. Negli anni sessanta e settanta della sua vita, scrisse tre romanzi gialli acclamati dalla critica—Murder in Stained Glass (1939), The Man with No Face (1940) e The Blue Santo Murder Mystery (1941)—e due biografie, Fanny Kemble: A Passionate Victorian (1938) e Trelawny: A Man's Life (1940). Completò anche le memorie di suo padre. Morì a New York nel 1944.