Charles Dana Gibson

This studio photograph, not a cartoon plate, shows Charles Dana Gibson (1867–1944) seated in a ladder-back chair, dressed in a dark suit, hands clasped, gaze composed and slightly averted — the prosperous magazine illustrator at middle age. Gibson joined *Life* in the 1880s and became its dominant voice, creating the Gibson Girl: an idealized, self-possessed American woman whose image defined femininity for a generation. By 1904 he had signed a landmark $100,000 contract with *Collier's*. The photograph, made by the Bain News Service, likely accompanied press coverage of his career or his wartime work for the Committee on Public Information. It offers a rare glimpse of the man behind an iconic pen-and-ink franchise.