TASHA TUDOR (1915-2008)
"She was standing inside the secret garden." Illustration for page 69 of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1962) illustrated by Tudor; republished as the dust jacket cover and page 79 of the 1985 and later editions. Watercolor and graphite on paper. Circa 1962. 250x165 mm; 9¾x6½ inches, on 8x12¼-inch sheet. Signed "T. Tudor" in pencil, lower right image; caption with Tudor's own title as given here, written along bottom edge and extending up along the corner, and with her comment at left: "This picture falls in the book a page ahead of the incident - All right?" Printer's notes "¼ reduction" and assumed text placement ("p. 67") also penciled between Tudor's notes. Tipped to matte and framed.Provenance: Bush Galleries.One of Tudor's most iconic images for Burnett's world-beloved children's classic. Though it was illustrated for English and American audiences by such noted artists as Maria Louise Kirk and Charles Heath Robinson since its first printing in 1911, it was Tudor's edition that revived and introduced it to new generations of readers in the second half of the century.The image here depicts the anticipation of the novel's pivotal scene when central character Mary Lennox takes the discovered key to the door of the secret garden and opens it slowly.