Catherine “Kate” Greenaway was an English children’s book illustrator and writer. Greenaway was a rival of Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott in illustrations around the time of her life.
Not much can be said about her childhood, except that she was born on March 17th in 1846 and she spent most of it in Rolleston in Nottinghamshire. She went years later to London to study at the Royal College of Art at the women’s section (they were separated from the men at the time she studied there).
Her first book to be published and later would be bestseller was “Under the Window”, in 1879. All of Greenaway’s paintings used chromoxylography to reproduce them , doing this the colours were printed from hand-engraved wood blocks from Edmund Evans firm. Kate Greenaway’s drawings of children would later on be adapted into children’s clothing by “Liberty of London”, which was embraced by that generation of mothers with a british liberal artistic mind in the arts and crafts movement, known as the “Soul”, during the late 19th century.
She became a member of the Royal Institute of Water Colours in 1889.
She lived in a house in Frognal,London. She had it commissioned by Richard Norman, to have it in an Arts and Crafts style.
In 1901, Kate Greenaway died from Breast Cancer on 6th November, she was just 55 years old.
She had a literary award established in 1955 in honour of her, known as The Kate Greenaway Medal.
Helen Wright 