LEIGHTON, Clare. ~ Ellen and Her Children.
Preliminary pencil and chalk drawing for a wood engraving in “The Time of Man” by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, published by the Viking Press, New York, 1945. Together with two process proofs of the engraving as it was prepared for printing, on with use of china white by the artist to show where the block needs to be corrected. Framed together as a triptych.
Sold together with a copy of the book. The image ‘Ellen and Her Children’ appears opposite p.350 in the book and is the final image in the book.
Best known for her wood engravings illustrating rural landscapes and agricultural workers in England, Europe and the American South, Clare Leighton (1898-1989) illustrated at least 65 books, as well as writing and illustrating her own books. She studied at the Slade and the Central School of Arts and Crafts where she learned wood engravings with Noel Rooke. She was the first woman to write a book on wood engraving, Wood-Engraving and Woodcuts which helped to attract other women artists into using it as a medium.
During the late 1920s and 1930s Leighton visited America several times on a number of lecture tours, finally emigrating there in 1939. She became a member of the faculty at Duke University and in 1945 was elected in to the National Academy of Design.