Born: 30 March 1888, United States
Died: 30 October 1936
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following (also here) is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Brooklyn-born Ethel McClellan Plummer came of age artistically after the introduction of modern European and American art into an increasingly urban American society. Shaped by these influences, Plummer depicts American beauties in an urban setting, as stylish, flattened figures, defined by sophisticated use of line, color, and pattern, as in this drawing for Vanity Fair. Plummer made cover designs and illustrations in the 1920s and 1930s for magazines of sophisticated fashion such as Vogue and Vanity Fair, as well as publications with broader appeal such as Life, Women’s Home Companion, Shadowland, and the New York Tribune.
Her use of line, color, and pattern in defining forms show the influence of modern American and European art. Productive, pro-suffrage, and known for her magazine covers and illustrations, Plummer was the first woman to publish a cartoon in the New Yorker.