Peggy Bacon
| Peggy Bacon | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Margaret Frances Bacon May 2, 1895 Ridgefield, Connecticut, United States |
| Died | January 4, 1987 (aged 91) Kennebunk, Maine, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Painting, illustration |
Margaret Frances "Peggy" Bacon (May 2, 1895 – January 4, 1987) was an American printmaker, illustrator, painter and writer. Bacon was known for her humorous and ironic etchings and drawings, as well as for her satirical caricatures of prominent personalities in the late 1920s and 1930s.
The aim of a caricature is to heighten and intensify to the point of absurdity all the subject's most striking attributes; a caricature should not necessarily stop at ridiculing the features but should include in its extravagant appraisal whatever of the figure may be needed to explain the personality, the whole drawing imparting a spicy and clairvoyant comment upon the subject's peculiarities.
Bacon was born on May 2, 1895 in Ridgefield, Connecticut to Charles Roswell Bacon and Elizabeth Chase Bacon. She was the first of three children but raised an only child after her two younger brothers died in infancy. Bacon's parents were both artists and met while attending the Art Students League in New York. Her father, an errand boy for Tiffany's during his childhood, painted landscapes and figures in adulthood while her mother was a miniaturist. Both of her parents were very well read; they loved reading Henry James and would read aloud as a family every evening.
Bacon's parents moved frequently and would have tutors for Bacon wherever they went. The family lived in Connecticut but spent winters in New York and in the winter of 1902 they lived in Nassau, Bahamas. They also spent time in Pas de Calais and London. Between the ages of 9 and 11 Bacon lived with her parents in France, first in Paris and then in a house in Picardy at Montreaux-sur-Mer. Bacon's mother did not believe in formal schooling and as a result, for most of her childhood, Bacon had tutors and studied only subjects of interest to her, such as Latin, Greek, mythology, ancient history and geography of the ancient world. Bacon described her unconventional childhood as "absolutely delightful." Her youth was very sheltered; she was often accompanied by a governess, most of which she hated. The only time she really had freedom from this life was when her family was living in Nassau and her parents and grandmother were quarantined because they had contracted typhoid fever.
At the age of fourteen, Bacon began attending Kent Place School, a boarding school in Summit, New Jersey. In 1913, the same year she graduated, Bacon's father killed himself in his studio in New York. He had overcome alcoholism but was susceptible to bouts of depression. After this devastating event Bacon and her mother moved to New York City and lived on the West Side in the home of family friends.
Bacon had always been interested in art and from a very young age her early artistic interests were encouraged and supported by her parents. Although Bacon started drawing when she was a year and a half old, she did not receive formal training in art until after graduating from Kent Place School. At the end of 1913, Bacon first studied art at the School of Applied Design for Women but disliked it calling it, "the prissiest, silliest place that ever was." She transferred after a few weeks to the School of Fine and Applied Arts on the West Wide where she took classes in illustration and life drawing. During the summer of 1914 Bacon attended Jonas Lie's landscape class in Port Jefferson, Long Island.
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