page_title: Alice Barber Stephens
section_title: Illustrator and painter
hierarchical_section_title: Alice Barber Stephens / Career / Illustrator and painter
caption_attribution_description: "The Nursery" by Alice Barber Stephens, 1898 Ivory Soap advertisement.
context_page_description: Alice Barber Stephens was an American painter and engraver, best remembered for her illustrations. Her work regularly appeared in magazines such as Scribner's Monthly, Harper's Weekly, and The Ladies Home Journal.
context_section_description: She illustrated Sarah Orne Jewett's An Every-Day Girl (1890). Her painting The Germania Orchestra at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1891) is now among the collection of the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover, Delaware.
  During the mid-1890s, following the development of the halftone process, Stephens started to use more varied media, including watercolor, for her illustrations. The increasing popularity of her illustrations for mystery stories earned her the title "Mistress of Mysteries."
  In 1895, The Philadelphia Inquirer noted when referring to Stephens that "there is scarcely any American illustrator better known to-day." That year, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Stark Munro Letters was published, which was illustrated by Stephens.
  Throughout the year 1897, Ladies' Home Journal ran a series called "The American Woman," featuring six full-page illustrations by Stephens. The illustrations depicted the American Woman in six different settings: society, religion, home, summer, business, and motherhood. Notably, Stephens, who was both a career artist and the mother of a then-four-year-old son, chose to set three of the scenes inside the home, and three outside the home.  She illustrated Mary E. Wilkins' The People of Our Neighborhood, which was published in 1898.
  In 1899, Stephens was invited to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but she declined the offer due to poor health. Following another European sojourn during 1901-1902, Stephens also completed illustrations for the 1903 edition of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. During Stephens' time in Paris in 1902, Maria Christina of Spain requested that Stephens paint her portrait.
  Stephens continued to work as a renowned illustrator and completed illustrations for the 1903 edition of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. She served on the jury for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. In 1904, more commonly known as the St. Louis World’s Fair.
  During the late 1910s, the pace of Stephens' work began to slow. She reportedly told an interviewer that she refused to work during World War I, saying it was not "worthwhile to make pictures in the midst of destruction." In 1917, Hamlin Garland's A Son of the Middle Border was published, which was illustrated by Stephens.
  In the later part of her career, in the 1920s, Stephens' illustrations were made of mostly washes or charcoal with washes. She painted landscapes and portraits of Quakers and Pennsylvania Germans. By 1926, she had ceased working commercially.
  In 1929, the Plastic Club held a retrospective exhibition of her work in Philadelphia.
caption: "The Nursery" by Alice Barber Stephens. 1898 Ivory Soap advertisement.
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