(b Philadelphia, PA, 1 April 1852; d London, 1 Aug 1911). American painter and illustrator, active in England. He began his artistic training in 1866, studying drawing with the Philadelphia portrait and landscape painter Isaac L. Williams (1817–95). In 1868 he attended evening classes in drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Christian Schussele (?1824–79). In the same year Abbey began to work as an illustrator for the Philadelphia publishers Van Ingen & Snyder. In 1870 Harper’s Weekly published the Puritans’ First Thanksgiving, and in 1871 Abbey moved to New York to join the staff of Harper & Brothers, thus inaugurating his most important professional relationship. Throughout the 1870s Abbey’s reputation grew, both for his detailed exhibition watercolours and for his elegant line drawings, which, translated to wood-engravings in numerous periodicals, illustrated both factual and fictional events of the past and present. The influences on him were mainly English, in particular the works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and illustrations in the English press, which he studied avidly. The success of his illustrations to some of Robert Herrick’s poems, such as Corinna’s Going A-Maying in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (May 1874), prompted Harper & Brothers in 1878 to send Abbey to England to do a complete series of drawings for an illustrated gift-book, Selections from the Poetry of Robert Herrick (New York, 1882). On his arrival in England, Abbey found his spiritual home, and except for a few trips, he never left.

• Abbey, Edward Austin
  • groups and movements
    • Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
  • works
    • Book illustration, §IV, 2: 19th century: France, the USA and elsewhere
    • Boston, §II: Art life and organization
    • McKim, Mead & White, §2(iii): High classical period
    • Mural, §3: North America