Maud Humphrey was an artist who was born in Rochester, New York in 1868, and she lived until 1940. She was the mother of the famous actor, Humphrey Bogart. She enjoyed quite a long and successful career.
Her grandson, Stephen Bogart, described her as follows:
Her long career as an illustrator of calendars, greeting cards, fashion magazines, and more than twenty story books, and as a portrait painter of socialite children, flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. She worked in the sentimental Victorian tradition, painting stylized cherubic children with round faces, chipmunk cheeks, curly blond ringlets, large eyes, button noses, rosy lips, frilly collars, and long white dresses. Her work promoted Prudential Insurance and Ivory soap, appeared on the covers of Harper's and Century magazines, and was exhibited in New York and Boston.
Hamilton Collections began to produce figurines in the 1980s modeled after Maud Humphrey's illustrations. My mother has a wonderful collection of these, and I wanted to share two of my favorites. The one on the left is Susanna, and the one on the right is Sarah. They are approximately four inches in height. I'll show you some of my other favorites another day.
