Grant, Gordon, 1875-1962

Psyche wears an Easter bonnet and admires her reflection in a small pool of water with irises and lilies.

Comments and Context

The back-story of Puck‘s Easter Issue’s cover is related to its year, 1909. The artist, Gordon Grant, was Puck‘s answer to Life Magazine’s Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the glamorous Gibson Girl. As “American Girls” began gracing the covers of virtually every magazine of every category at the time — drawn or painted by the likes of Gibson and Grant; James Montgomery Flagg; Coles Phillips; Howard Chandler Christy; C. Jay Taylor; Penrhyn Stanlaws; and others — Puck even got a little saucy with an Easter theme.

But Grant did not seek to titillate with a scantily-clad maiden. The obligatory humorous touch was an Easter bonnet on a wood nymph. But the context of the pose and woman herself was a famous painting whose popularity swept popular culture in nearly every aspect. Like the semi-scandalous September Morn two years later would create a sensation, the canvas by the German Academician Paul Thumann (1834-1908) had first been exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition (World’s fair) in Chicago and was ubiquitous in prints, posters, cards, and on calendars. The original title addressed the Greek goddess, Psyche at Nature’s Mirror.

A young woman sits at her dressing table, holding up a mirror to admire her hair. A maid arranges plant sprigs in her hair.

Comments and Context

The Christmas numbers of Puck through the decades were always sumptuous affairs, at least sixty-four pages instead of the magazine’s usual sixteen; invariably full-color throughout instead of color front-, back-, and center-pages; often with contributions by guest “celebrity” writers and poets; and virtually no politics.

If politics intruded, it usually was in humorous good will, innocuous depictions of prominent figures, not attacks or issues.

In a crowded dining room with mostly women and a few men, the women are helping themselves to the table settings and other items that will fit into their purses. An insert shows the horrified reaction of members during “The House Committee’s Inventory.” Caption: Talk about your shoplifters!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-09-14

A young man “shoplifts” a kiss from a beautiful young woman clerk in a shop.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-04-27

An attractive woman plays billiards surrounded by four dashing men offering her advice on how to approach a bridge shot. Caption: Expert advice on how to handle it.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-04-06

A young couple stands near a mirror, and as the young man declares his love for her, the young woman gazes on her reflection in the mirror and wonders how it would be possible not to love her. Caption: “I love you” … as he made the vow they near a limpid mirror stood. She gazed within and mutely said, “Well really, I should think he would.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-03-09

A young man and a young woman are ice skating. The man tries to kiss or embrace her, but she deftly uses her muff to block his advance. Caption: Vigorous opposition to grasping monopoly.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-02-16

Three well-dressed women with large bonnets discuss the fare on a street railroad while the conductor discreetly turns away.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-01-12

A Christmas present box is filled with beautiful female faces.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-12-01

A group of men at a football game is paying closer attention to exposure of a fashionably dressed young woman’s legs as she climbs the steep steps in a grandstand.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-11-12

Four elderly men and two elderly women watch a fashionably dressed young woman as she walks down the sidewalk.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-10-15

A young couple stand in an embrace in a wooded area during autumn, with Cupid perched on a branch holding a cluster of red leaves over their heads. Caption: And yet how many there are who run by Cupid’s block-signal.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-10-08

On the left, a beautiful young woman wearing a beach robe enters a bathhouse to change. On the right, she emerges from the bathhouse fashionably dressed in an outfit that may be more revealing than her beach clothing, and carrying a parasol.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-09-10

A stork carries an infant against a full moon, above a snow covered community.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-02-05

A woman wearing a red dress, holding money, stands between the “Health Department Bureau of Licences and Inspection” and an opening in a wall labeled “Graft.” In a cut-away showing the scene behind the “Graft,” the man (probably a plainclothes officer) who collects the money through the opening in the wall is passing money to a uniformed officer, who in turn passes the money to a large hand (probably that of a politician) entering the frame from above. It is a wild scene with a woman lying on a table, the body of a man stabbed to death beneath the table, a man rolling dice, others drinking, and a shooting taking place in the background. While the woman in red hesitates, the implication is that she has no choice but to pay the graft. Caption: She is here. Man is responsible for her. His laws against her and her traffic but afford opportunity for police extortion. You know this. You may wince at the idea of “regulation,” but is not regulation preferable to the vilest forms of graft? Of two evils, must the greater be chosen?

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-01-15

A snowman and a beautiful young woman flirt with each other.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-02-28

Two women and a child, along with other spectators, stand in front of a cage, offering a peanut to an unseen chimpanzee or ape named “Jocko.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-02-22

A woman wearing winter clothing and holding her muff in front of her face has only one eye exposed.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-01-04