HIlda Cowham (1873-1964)
Hilda Cowham was one of the best of female comic artists of the early twentieth century, making a name with her creation, the ‘Cowham Kid’.
Hilda Cowham was born at the Wesleyan Training College, Westminster, London, on 29 July 1873, the daughter of Joseph Henry Cowham, Lecturer on Education and Master of Methods. During the early 1890s, she studied modelling under Alfred Drury at Wimbledon School of Art, before attending Lambeth School of Art on a two-year scholarship. While she was at Lambeth, she won two competitions held by The Studio magazine, and published her first cartoons in Pick-Me-Up and The Sketch (1894-95), so encouraging her to take up illustration as a profession. It is possible that she also studied at the Royal College of Art. In 1900, she married the painter and illustrator, Edgar Lander, who was ten years her junior, and they settled in Marylebone.
One of the first women to work for Punch – though the first had been Helen Hopper Coode in 1859 – Cowham was soon considered among the best of the female comic artists, scoring a particular success with her creation, the ‘Cowham Kid’.
She contributed to many other periodicals, including Pearson’s Magazine (1901-09) and The Graphic’s ‘Christmas’ supplements (1902-5, 1908, 1912). She also illustrated books, including some – such as Fiddlesticks (1900), Blacklegs and Others (1911) and Curly Heads and Long Legs (1914) – that she also wrote.
Her early work for magazines and posters, in pen and brush, is of great simplicity and, like much contemporary illustration, is suggestive of the Japanese woodcut. Her softer, more detailed watercolours relate closely to those of other female nursery artists, such as her friend Mabel Lucie Attwell, whom she influenced. In the period 1924 to 1935, she and Attwell were employed by Shelley Potteries to provide illustrations for nursery ware. She exhibited both watercolours and etchings – of children and dancing themes – in London and the provinces, on the Continent and in the United States. She was a member of the Society of Graphic Art and the Three Arts Club, among others.
By the mid 1920s, Hilda Cowham and Edgar Lander were dividing their time between 92 Clifton Hill, St John’s Wood, and Cromwell Cottage, Chinnor, Oxfordshire. Latterly, they lived at Ashley House, Shalford, near Guilford, Surrey. She died on 28 September 1964.
Her work is represented in the collections of the V&A.
