Christy Girls: Illustrations That Inspired Women and War Efforts
First Christy Girl
According to one art historian, the first Christy Girl painting appeared in an 1895 issue of Century Magazine, most likely when future famed artist Howard Chandler Christy was a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City.
A member of the Art Student League and understudy to impressionist artist William Merritt Chase, art historians believe that the second Christy Girl cover was published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1898, entitled “The Soldier’s Dream,” portraying the painter’s idealized vision of American female beauty, which would catapult Christy to preeminence from the 1890s through World War One and beyond.
Like the Gibson Girl before him, Christy began producing posters and magazine covers that swooned the hearts of young men, while instructing young women about the desirability of aristocratic high breeding and feminine daintiness.
The American Girl
His fame intensified after his 1906 publication of two collections focused on his vision of female beauty, The Christy Girl and The American Girl, which helped to solidify his reputation as a top-shelf illustrator, at the same imprinting an image of female beauty in the minds of highly impressionable young women of the day.
After the outbreak of World War One, Christy was inundated with commissions by the U.S. government for P.R. posters, which urged Americans to buy war bonds, while others encouraged Americans to join the Red Cross, the Navy and the Marines, not to mention a number of civilian volunteer organizations designed to lend aid and support to a wore-torn European continent.
Among his most popular posters were the “Spirit of America,” “Gee, I Wish I Were a Man,” and “Fight or Buy Bonds.
Famous Portraits
After his popularity soared on the coattails of his Christy Girls, from the 1920s until his death in 1952, Christy became a revered portrait painter to the rich and famous, including Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, FDR and Harry S Truman.
Other famous subjects include William Randolph Hearst, King Edward the 8th, war ace Eddie Rickenbacker, fascist leader Benito Mussolini and aviator Amelia Earhart. He also painted the now famous “Signing of the U.S. Constitution,” inspiring Time Magazine to name Howard Chandler Christy the most commercially successful artist in America, making Christy Girls, a bygone representation of idealized female beauty during the First World War.