Watercolours from the book Tiff Taff & Tuff by Helen Jacobs (1880 - 1970)
Born in Ilford, sister to the famous humorous writer W W Jacobs, she spent her youth in Stoke Newington. She went to Art College at West Ham Municipal College and studied under Arthur Legge.
Helen Mary Jacobs first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1910. She contributed to annuals such as Playbox, Rainbow and Little Folks but very soon all the major publishers including Hodder & Stoughton, Ward Lock & SPCK, were commissioning her. Her work was often with her friend Stella Mead and she did a series of drawings of Moths for Lord Rothschild. From 1912 she had made enough to move to Winchmore Hill. She wanted to put back into the community that had helped her so later in life she taught at a primary school in Stoke Newington and produced several schoolbooks & primers but these were in a more basic childlike style for the children to copy.
Her passion was painting cats and she bettered Louis Wain in painting them in naturalistic cat pursuits but with Human cloths. A master of cat mannerisms as well as a wonderful observer of children her cats are believable.
