Anne Harriet Fish
(1890-1964) English Illustrator
This project is devoted to American women illustrators, by which standard Fish might not appear. But she traveled to New York and did work for Conde Nast's new Vanity Fair, launched in 1913. (Periodicals with that name appeared in several incarnations on both sides of the Atlantic, beginning in 1859; Nast's became a significant cultural player but did not survive the Depression, folding in 1936.)
Fish is known as an arch chronicler of the Jazz Age. A caricaturist and satirist, she first attracted notice in England, notably in the pages of Punch and The Tatler. Her attenuated, flattened approach to drawing the figure and use of black shape is reminiscent of John Held, Jr., who like her is associated with the essential 20s "flapper."
Fish created her own character, Eve, whose exploits in the Tatler were captured in compilations called the Book of Eve (of which there were at least three). She was also hired by the Fulper Pottery Company (New Jersey) to do design work associated with a line of porcelain novelties.
Born in Bristol, she studied at the London School of Art and in Paris.
Later in life she produced amusing paintings of cats to raise money for feline charities.
Anne Fish. Vanity Fair. November 1915.
Anne Fish, "Great Moments at the Movies". Vanity Fair. December 1916.
Anne Fish, "The Dazzle Fish" (top) and "The Riviera" (bottom). Print ad illustrations for Abdulla and Co., Ltd.
Anne Fish, "The Once Rich". Harper's Bazaar. January 1929.
Anne Fish, "The Riviera Face". Harper's Bazaar. January 1929.
Anne Fish. Vanity Fair. February 1921.
Anne Fish. Vanity Fair. December 1916.