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The books of Cicely Mary Barker have enjoyed an enduring popularity with adults and children alike

Her pictures of nostalgic children and floral sprites are charmingly delicate in detail and exhibit her Christian morality and understanding of nature

Childhood

Barker was born on 28 June, 1895 in Croyden, Surrey, England, to Walter Barker and Mary Eleanor Oswald

Walter Barker was descended from a long line of wood carvers, a profession which he also pursued
In 1909, he donated a hand-carved pulpit to the family church, St. Edmund’s in Croydon

His daughter also showed an innate sense of creativity early on, engaging in hours of drawing and painting as a child

She suffered from epilepsy as a child, a condition which disappeared after World War I and never afflicted her again
Because of her illness, she was treated as the baby of the family and overprotected her whole life
In part, this may have contributed to her understanding and portrayal of children in her artwork

Education

Due to her delicate condition, her parents thought it best to have her educated at home by governesses
Her father paid for a correspondence course in art which she continued until at least 1919
It provided her with details and the constructive criticism that she needed

He also enrolled her in an evening class at the Croyden School of Art when she was thirteen, which she continued to attend into the 1940’s, eventually earning a teaching position there

Professional Career

At age 15, her father took examples of her work to the publisher Raphael Tuck
They were bought by them and published as a set of postcards

The next year, she won second prize in a poster competition run by the Croyden Art Society
She was soon elected to life membership in the Society, becoming their youngest member

Barker had a special relationship with her father
He was proud of her and fond of calling her ‘Ciskin’

After her father’s untimely death in 1912, her older sister, Dorothy, tried to support the family with her small teaching salary
Barker also tried to help by selling poetry and illustrations to magazines such as My Magazine, Child’s Own, Leading Strings and Raphael Tuck annuals

Barker is best-known for her ‘Flower Fairy’ series of books
Fairies were a popular topic at this time - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book 'The Coming of the Fairies' had been published only the year before and included five photographs of fairies taken by two little girls
The photographs had been declared genuine by an expert only to be proven fakes in the 1980’s

Queen Mary was fond of the fairy-themed work of the Australian Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and would send out postcards with her fairy images to her friends

It was also a time when people wanted to escape the harsh realities of progress, and return to a simpler and more innocent pre-scientific age

Barker’s fairies were based on her knowledge of plants and flowers and her artistic studies of real children, each dressed to represent a different flower

The success of her first volume in 1923, which she also wrote, led to the creation of seven more

Barker created a new costume for each of the fairies, carefully taking them apart when she was done in order to reuse the fabric

She never compiled a book of winter flower fairies
It was not until 1985, 12 years after her death, that Flower Fairies of the Winter was compiled from illustrations and poems in her other seven Flower Fairies books

In 1924 Barker had a studio built in the garden of their home at 23 The Waldrons, which also housed her sister’s kindergarten school

In 1961, she told a Croyden Advertiser reporter:-

Many of these students appeared as her Flower Fairies until 1940 when her sister closed down the school

After Dorothy died in 1954, Barker designed a stained glass window for St. Edmund’s Church in memory of her sister

Barker was a devout Christian, contributing designs for postcards and greeting cards over the years to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Girls’ Friendly Society, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
In 1925, one of these paintings, ‘The Darling of the World is Come’ was purchased by Queen Mary

In addition, she also made paintings for churches, as well as donating paintings to help raise money

She continued to paint until her eyesight began to fail her towards to end of her life
She died on February 16, 1973 at the age of 77 years old

Coincidentally, it was the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of her first ‘Flower Fairy’ book that year

Influences, Style & Technique

As a child, Barker was exposed to the books of Kate Greenaway
She spent many hours in bed coloring or painting meticulously in her many Kate Greenaway painting books
Although her children do not seem as melancholy as Greenaway’s, they wear similarly nostalgic clothing in idealized settings

Like Beatrix Potter, she studied flowers with a botanist’s eye
Barker’s style of painting and modeling of her subjects is similar to that of Potter’s, unlike Greenaway’s style which is flat (largely due to the printing process of her books that was used at the time)

Barker was also good friends with Margaret Tarrant, another children's book illustrator

Yet Barker gives credit to the Pre-Raphaelites for being her greatest influence (no doubt also influencing Greenaway and Potter)

Two of Barker’s most cherished books were the two-volume set 'Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones' that she received for Christmas in 1920 from her mother
The family also owned 'The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais' which she enjoyed reading

She worked mostly in watercolor with pen-and-ink and sometimes in black-and-white
She was also proficient in oils and pastels

She was in the habit of carrying a sketchbook with her and would quickly sketch any interesting child for future use

Raison d’Être

There were two concepts that John Ruskin wrote about in Modern painters - in everything, be truthful to nature and art should serve a high moral or spiritual purpose

It is easy to see that Barker was scrupulous in her attention to detail in her flower-fairy paintings, to the point of matching her models character to the type of flower she was depicting

But Ruskin’s second notion troubled Barker a bit

She did a fair amount of charity work but she always worried that she wasn’t doing enough
She was well aware of the source of her talents and was grateful for her gifts
The suffering she endured as a child served to strengthen her faith and appreciation of the beauty around her

Even though monetary concerns kept her from doing more religious work, she found a way to incoporate her feelings in her secular work by honoring the beauty in nature and showing compassion in her subjects

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