When I saw the painting of the woman in the red hat, she instantly reminded me of another painting. Her black hair was nicely coiffed, her red hat was fashionable, and she looked so life-like.
Where had I seen a painting just like this? I could not remember.
The painting was in a plastic wrapper that had done a good job of protecting it, except for one small corner at the top that had opened up. There was no artist’s signature on the front, so I picked up the painting from against the wall on the floor at the auction house to see if there was anything printed on the back.
“Original watercolor by Betty Jaxon. C. 1930’s – 1940’s,” someone had written in black marker. “Philadelphia artist and commercial artist.”
I was unfamiliar with her name, so I Googled. Betty Bolden Jaxon was an illustrator at Strawbridge & Clothier department store in Philadelphia, according to a brief mention in Philadelphia Art News in 1938. She had just returned from spending “several weeks in Florida looking at people wearing all the latest fashions.”
Jaxon also created illustrations for Vogue patterns. She produced a layout of a girl’s dress patterns and paper dolls for Vogue that were published in Jack and Jill magazine in the early 1960s. Titled “Pretty as a Picture,” the paper doll was named Jill and was shown in two different stances surrounded by fashionable clothes. The tabs on the clothes showed the Vogue pattern numbers.
In a 1953 Strawbridge company publication, an Elizabeth Jaxon from advertising was shown in a photo holding one of three pastel portrait studies from its public art show. It was the company’s third annual hobby show, and one of her portraits was a winner. Could that be her?
I’d love to know more about Jaxon – and the name of that other artist whose painting resembled hers.
