Lot 7: St. Nicholas/August/The Midsummer Number. 1896.

St. Nicholas/August/The Midsummer Number. 1896.In 1872, Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland approached The Century publishing house with his idea for "a magazine for children, a magazine of lively, well-written stories, poetry, and articles, a magazine with the same high standards as the monthly which they published for adults." The publishers agreed, and writer Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905) was chosen as editor. By the time she was handpicked to head the new children's magazine, she had already written many children's stories, including the one which would become a classic, the novel "Hans Brinker," or "The Silver Skates." Dodge knew immediately that she wanted the magazine to be a "child's playground; where children could be delighted as well as be in charge." What St. Nicholas would not be was didactic. Hampe's spritely, verdant fairyland artwork goes hand-in-hand with the thoughtful whimsy the magazine intended to promote. Hampe was born in Philadelphia in 1877 and established his first studio in San Francisco around 1890. A highly talented watercolor artist, both he and his artist wife, Mathilde Eggers Hampe, exhibited at the Mechanics Institute and the San Francisco Art Association at the turn-of-the-twentieth century.
THEODORE MICHAEL HAMPE (1877-1965)

14 1/2 x 21 in./36.8 x 53.2 cm

1896.0

A-/ Horizontal fold/P.

PRINTER
G. H. Buek & Co, N.Y.