#Clare Leighton

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

CLARE LEIGHTON

Here are a few engravings from a recent acquisition for our reference collection on the engravings of English/American artist, writer, and illustrator Clare Leighton (1898-1989), Clare Leighton's Rural Life: An Anthology, published in Oxford by the Bodleian Library in 2023. The book was edited with an introduction by Leighton's devoted nephew David Leighton (1931-2022), who sadly did not live to see its publication. Clare Leighton was one of the most prolific and highly regarded wood engravers of her time, leaving behind a body of work that reflected her rural life in Britain and North America.

During the 1930s, as the world around her became increasingly technological, industrial, and urban, Leighton portrayed rural folk and the ancient methods they used to work the land that would soon vanish forever. Her two best-loved publications, Four Hedges (1931) and The Farmer's Year (1933), reflect this passion for the British countryside. Less well known are her books illustrating and describing rural life in the United States, where she emigrated and became a naturalized citizen in 1945. Leighton also spent time in Canada with the logging community, winning the respect of Canadian lumberjacks by adopting their way of life. Her wood engravings depicting lumberjacks in the snow-covered forests of Canada are some of her most evocative prints.

This anthology includes beautifully reproduced extracts and David Leighton's detailed introduction to the artist's life and work, reflecting Clare Leighton's lifelong fascination with the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land.

View more posts with work by Clare Leighton.

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View more Women’s History Month posts.

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Clare Leighton - Snow shovellers (1929)

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Clare Leighton 1898-1989

UK

"Breadline, New York" 1932

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Lovers In the Wheat field BPL 570, 1944. Clare Leighton. Original Woodblock (discolorations from handling).

[topcat77]

Country Matters

Clare Leighton

[abwwia]

Clare Leighton, Bread Line, New York, 1932, wood engraving on paper, image: 11 7⁄8 x 8 in. (30.3 x 20.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Frank McClure, 1979.98.146

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Clare Leighton (1898-1989)

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by Clare Leighton

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This lovley green costume with broderi flowers and leafs on is worn on Daisy Waterstone as Clare Leighton in Testament of Youth (2014) and later worn on Gillian Anderson as Jean Milburn in Sex Education (2020)

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Woman with Flowers

Clare Leighton

Woodblock, 1937

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Clare Leighton, woodcut

[uwmspeccoll]

A Nesting Feathursday Blackbird

The Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula) is unrelated to New World blackbirds, as blackbirds of the Western Hemisphere are Icterids, and the Eurasian Blackbird is a thrush (Turdidae). This wood engraving of a nesting Eurasian Blackbird is by the heralded English American engraver Clare Leighton (1898-1989) from the recent book Clare Leighton's Rural Life: An Anthology (2023) as reproduced in a republished review of the book by the British nature writer and columnist for The Guardian, Nicola Chester in the latest issue of Block & Burin (No. 72, Fall 2024, pp 26-30), the official publication of the Wood Engravers' Network, a full run of which we are currently cataloging. Chester writes:

And here are her messages for our times, fresh as a boxwood shaving: 'if I am defiant in my defense of the country side, it is because I know it is the last hope of humanity . . . the strong, sane humour of the earth, without which there is no health. At no time has this been more needed, and at no time have we been at greater risk of losing it.' Clare Leighton, 'artist as quickener of the world' died aged 91, after a life of nature, creativity and work, peace, friendship and the expansive arms of inclusion.

We'll be acquiring Clare Leighton's Rural Life soon, and certainly posting images from it. You can read Nicola Chester's full review here.

View more posts with work by Clare Leighton.

View more Feathursday posts.

View more posts with wood engravings!

[random-brushstrokes]

Clare Leighton - On the Moor (1931)

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CLARE LEIGHTON / (1898 – 1989) / The Lovers

[kafkasapartment]

Snow Shovellers, New York, 1929. Clare Leighton. Wood Engraving.