Illustrator of child and adult books. The daughter of John Greenaway, a draftsman and wood engraver, Kate Greenaway grew up in various residences, including a farmhouse in Nottinghamshire, and studied art in various places, including London. She began to exhibit drawings in 1868, and her first published illustrations appeared in such magazines as Little Folks. In 1879 she produced her first successful book, Under the Window, followed by The Birthday Book (1880), Mother Goose (1881), Little Ann (1883), and other books for children, which had an enormous success and became very highly valued. “Toy-books” though they were, these little works created a revolution in book illustration; they were praised by John Ruskin, by Ernest Chesneau and Arsène Alexandre in France, by Richard Muther in Germany, and by other leading art critics throughout the world. Kate’s paintings were reproduced by chromo xylography, by which the colours were printed from hand engraved wood blocks by the firm of Edmund Evans. Through the 1880s and 1890s, her only rivals in popularity in children’s book illustration were Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott. As well as illustrating books Kate also produced a number of bookplates. The influence of children’s clothes in portraits by British painter John Hoppner 1758 to 1810 may have provided her some inspiration. Liberty of London adapted Kate’s drawings as designs for actual children’s clothes. In 1890 Kate was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and in 1891, 1894, and 1898 she exhibited watercolour drawings, including illustrations for her books, at the gallery of the Fine Art Society by which a representative selection was exhibited in 1902. From 1883 to 1897, with a break only in 1896, she issued a series of Kate Greenaway’s Almanacs. Although she illustrated The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1889) and other works, the artist preferred to provide her own text. She had great personal charm but was extremely shy of public notice. The Kate Greenaway Medal, established in her honour in 1955, is awarded annually by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in the UK to an illustrator of children’s books. Kate died in 1901. (bio by: Shock)