ABOUT THE ARTIST - Cicely Mary Barker

Cicely Mary Barker was born in 1895 in Croydon, Surrey, England. A frail child, often ill, she was educated at home and from an early age showed an exceptional talent for drawing and painting. Her father encouraged her work and paid for her to study art through a correspondence course, which she followed at least until she was in her twenties, but this was her only training. Her first drawings were sold to Raphael Tuck when she was just 16 and Blackie accepted her first fairy book, Flower Fairies of the Spring, for publication in 1923. This was followed by six other Flower Fairies books over the years.

Cicely Mary Barker’s sister, Dorothy, ran a kindergarten in their house and Cicely used the children in the school as her models, matching the character and appearance of the child to the character and appearance of the flower. Likewise, every fairy costume echoes the characteristics of the flower featured in a meticulous way, and the fairies themselves range from the cheeky little Heather boy racing over the moors to the graceful Willow fairy, dreamily gazing into quiet waters. Never sentimental, each picture fuses fantasy and reality in a unique portrait of fairy child and flower. Cicely Mary Barker died in 1973 but her remarkable talent lives on, her gentle Flower Fairies touching the heart still in our harsher modern age.