When We All Believe

Santa kneels in his red suit at the middle of a swarm of small children and babies, who press in from every side, reaching, tugging, staring up at his face. A book lies open on the floor before him. Rose O'Neill draws the children in soft pastel washes, each round face its own study, the crowd built from dozens of individual glances. WHEN WE ALL BELIEVE is lettered beneath. This ran inside the Christmas number rather than on the cover, an interior showpiece for the color press. O'Neill, then one of the few women earning a full living as an illustrator, would soon invent the Kewpies, and their wide-eyed sweetness is already here in these upturned baby faces. The subject is faith itself, drawn without a trace of mockery.