[ortut]

Claudia Losi - Asking Shelter X, 2018 (Bronze, brass and silver)

[the-evil-clergyman]

Phaeton, from Through Fairy Halls of My Bookhouse by Donn P. Crane (1925)

[inneroptics]

Olive Cotton -Skeleton Leaf 1964

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

🐺🤍

[lionfloss]

by c.m.thomas_

[musicmakesyousmart]

Nicholas Maloney - Signal, Variances & Place

Grisaille

2020

[uwhe-arts]

behind clouds … | uwhe-arts

[camera-raw]

Surprised

[uwmspeccoll]

Wood Engraving Wednesday

CLARE LEIGHTON

This week’s woman wood engraver is the English/American artist, writer, and illustrator Clare Leighton (1898-1989). Leighton was born in London to two noted English writers Robert Leighton and Marie Connor Leighton, and in her early life she lived in the shadow of her older, WWI-martyred poet bother Roland Leighton, who was  immortalized in his fiancé Vera Brittain’s memoir, Testament of Youth. Clare Leighton studied wood engraving under Noel Rooke at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in the early 1920s. After a long-standing, but ultimately failed romantic relationship with a married man, she emigrated to the United States in 1939, becoming a citizen in 1945. 

During her extensive career, Leighton engraved or cut more than 900 woodblocks, and designed numerous book illustrations, bookplates, engravings, mosaics, and stained glass windows. Although known primarily for her work as a printmaker, she was also the author of seven books, and she was the first woman to produce a book on wood-engraving, Wood-Engraving and Woodcuts, in 1932.

The engravings shown here are from Leighton’s book Growing New Roots, published in San Francisco by The Book Club of California in 1976, with illustrations, printed from the original blocks, that reveal the pride and patriotism she held for her adopted country. The “N. A.” after her name on the title page indicates that she was a member of the National Academy of Design, elected in 1945 as an Associate member and becoming a full Academician in 1949. Growing New Roots was designed and printed by the noted California printers’ printers Lawton and Alfred Kennedy in an edition of 500 copies signed by the artist. Our copy is another gift from our friend Jerry Buff.

View more posts with work by Clare Leighton.

View more posts with women wood engravers.

View more Women’s History Month posts.

View more posts with wood engravings!

[heaveninawildflower]

Pen and ink illustrations for Emilie C. Knappert’s ‘Views into the Plant World’ (1893) by Willem Wenckebach.

Published by Loman & Funke: Amsterdam.

Rijksmuseum.

Wikimedia.

This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication  

[tokyo-fashion]

20-year-old Japanese college student Arai - known for mixing kimono, traditional accessories, and modern elements - on the street in Omotesando Tokyo wearing a remake denim kimono with a corset, pleated mini skirt, and platform heels. Her Instagram

[the-evil-clergyman]

Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry by Katsushika Hokusai (1834)

[polkadotmotmot]

Elisabetta Zangrandi - Seascape, 2021

[bebemoon]

dendritic agate .

[nobrashfestivity]

Unknown, Home movie, Canada, 1950s

[lionfloss]

by ___.d2.___

[thevertigonetwork-deactivated20]

The original Sadako prop of Ringu Photo : Hideo Nakata

[fragrantblossoms]

Brassaï, Diaghalev Dancer, Ballets Russes, 1930.

[creepingirrelevance]

#opera gloves