William Ladd Taylor was one of finest American illustrators of the late 19th to early 20th centuries who specialized in depicting women doing everyday chores within genteel interiors.
Taylor was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts December 10, 1854. He studied at the Art Student's League and in Paris at the Academie Julian (with Boulanger and Lefebvre from 1884-1885) when Tarbell and Benson were there. When he returned to Boston, he concentrated his artistic efforts on illustrating for Ladies Home Journal, Harper's and Scribner's and in 1905 he became a member of the Society of Illustrators and the Copley Society (1907).
Taylor exhibited extensively and at the 1913 Armory Show in New York and he became known for black, white and gray watercolors on paper that were used as reproductions in stories printed in fashionable magazines and books. He illustrated Selections from Longfellow's Poems (a series of paintings that depicted life in New England), The Pioneer West, Old Song Series, The 19th Century in New England, Pictures from the Old Testament, Pictures from Psalms, Pictures of American Literature, Our Home and Country and more. Because of Taylor's popularity as an illustrator, Ladies Home Journal published many of his watercolors as prints and mass-distributed them, making the artist well-to-do.
Taylor lived the majority of his artistic life in Wellesley, Massachusetts and died in Grafton, Massachusetts, December 26, 1926.
