Margaret Armstrong

1867-1944 American

Art Nouveau-boekomslagen en bloemengidsen

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 beperkte het ontwerpen van boekomslagen rond 1913, toen stofomslagen in de mode kwamen, en richtte zich op het schrijven van haar eigen boeken. (Haar kenmerkende stijl was echter zo succesvol dat uitgevers vervolgens specifiek kunstenaars inhuurden om haar look na te bootsen.) Als enthousiast naturaliste weerspiegelde Armstrongs passie voor natuurlijke vormen haar interesse in de plantkunde en in het bijzonder in wilde bloemen. Tijdens de periode 1911-1914 reisde en kampeerde ze door het westen van de Verenigde Staten en Canada, en werd ze een van de eerste vrouwen die de bodem van de Grand Canyon bereikte. Daar ontdekte ze verschillende soorten bloemen die nog niet door botanici waren geïdentificeerd. Ze beschrijft deze en vele andere soorten gedetailleerd in haar Field Book of Western Wild Flowers (1915). Met zijn 550 illustraties (waarvan 48 in kleur) wordt haar Field Book beschouwd als de eerste uitgebreide gids over het onderwerp. In haar zestiger en zeventiger jaren schreef ze drie door critici geprezen misdaadromans—Murder in Stained Glass (1939), The Man with No Face (1940) en The Blue Santo Murder Mystery (1941)—en twee biografieën, Fanny Kemble: A Passionate Victorian (1938) en Trelawny: A Man's Life (1940). Ze voltooide ook de memoires van haar vader. Ze stierf in 1944 in New York.