Margaret Tarrant

Margaret Winifred Tarrant
Born	1888 Battersea, London, England
Died	28 July 1959 Cornwall, England
Residence	Peaslake, England
Nationality	English
Ethnicity	English
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Education	Clapham School of Art Heatherley's School of Art Guilford School of Art
Occupation	Children's author and illustrator Christian artist
Years active	1908–1952
Known for	Illustrations of fairies, children, religious subjects
Notable works	The Water Babies Forest Fairies Nursery Rhymes
Parents	Percy Tarrant and Sarah Wyatt

Margaret Winifred Tarrant (1888 – 29 July 1959) was an English illustrator specializing in depictions of fairy-like children and religious subjects. She began her career at the age of 20, and painted and published into the early 1950s. She was known for her children's books, postcards, calendars, and print reproductions.

Biography

Tarrant was born in Battersea, south London, the daughter of landscape painter Percy Tarrant and Sarah Wyatt Tarrant. She studied in the art department of Clapham High School and the Clapham School of Art. She briefly trained as a teacher, but turned to art instead. She studied at Heatherley’s School of Art, and at Guildford School of Art in 1935. She launched her career at age 20 with an edition of Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies.^[1][2]

In the 1920s, Tarrant helped to popularize fairies in a long running series of titles on the theme such as The Forest Fairies, The Pond Fairies, and The Twilight Fairies.^[3] She was long associated with the Medici Society and many of her postcards, calendars, and children's books were published by the organization.^[4] Following the death of both her parents in 1934, the Society sent her on a trip to Palestine to research material.^[2] During WWII, she donated posters to the war effort, and rode an old bike to conserve petrol.

Selected publications

Books

Book cover by Tarrant

• The Water Babies 1908
• Autumn Gleanings from the Poets (1910)
• Fairy Stories from Hans Christian Andersen (1910)
• Contes (Charles Perrault, 1910)
• The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Robert Browning1912)
• Nursery Rhymes (1914)
• A Picture Birthday Book for Boys and Girls (1915)
• Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1916)
• The Tooksy and Mary Alice Tales (1919)
• Our Day (1923)
• Rhymes of Old Times (1925)
• The Magic Lamplighter (Marion St John Webb, 1926)
• An Alphabet of Magic (Eleanor Farjeon, 1928)
• Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes (1929)
• The Margaret Tarrant Birthday Book (1932)
• Joan in Flowerland (1935)
• The Margaret Tarrant Nursery Rhyme Book (1944)
• The Story of Christmas (1952)

Prints

• The Piper of Dreams
• He Prayeth Best

References

Footnotes

1. ^ Dalby 1991, p. 134
2. ^ ^{a b} Ortlakes
3. ^ Dalby 1991, pp. 133-4
4. ^ Margaret Tarrant's Fairies (The Medici Society).

Works cited

• Dalby, Richard (1991), The Golden Age of Children's Book Illustration, Gallery Books, ISBN 0-8317-3910-X 
• Ortlakes, Denise (2002), Margaret Winifred Tarrant, http://web.archive.org/web/20050327074405/www.ortakales.com/Illustrators/Tarrant.html, retrieved 17 November 2010 
• Margaret Tarrant's Fairies, The Medici Society, http://www.medici.co.uk/licensing/margarettarrant.html, retrieved 5 September 2010 

External links

• M. W. Tarrant on Artnet
• Chronology of illustrated books by M. W. Tarrant ("Books and Writers")
• Illustrations by M. W. Tarrant (childhoodinart.org)

Persondata
Name	Tarrant, Margaret
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1888
Place of birth	Battersea, London, England
Date of death	28 July 1959
Place of death	Cornwall, England