Rose O'Neill
American illustrator
Died when: 69 years 286 days (837 months)Star Sign: Cancer
Rose Cecil O'Neill (June 25, 1874 – April 6, 1944) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and writer.She built a successful career as a magazine and book illustrator and, at a young age, became the best-known and highest-paid female commercial illustrator in the United States.
O'Neill earned a fortune and international fame by creating the Kewpie, the most widely known cartoon character until Mickey Mouse.
The daughter of a book salesman and a homemaker, O'Neill was raised in rural Nebraska.She exhibited interest in the arts at an early age, and sought a career as an illustrator in New York City at age fifteen.
Her Kewpie cartoons, which made their debut in a 1909 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, were later manufactured as bisque dolls in 1912 by J.
D.Kestner, a German toy company, followed by composition material and celluloid versions.The dolls were wildly popular in the early twentieth century, and are considered to be one of the first mass-marketed toys in the United States.
O'Neill also wrote several novels and books of poetry, and was active in the women's suffrage movement.She was for a time the highest-paid female illustrator in the world upon the success of the Kewpie dolls.
O'Neill has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.In 2022 at San Diego Comic Con, Rose O'Neill was inducted into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame as a Comic Pioneer.
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