Leighton, Clare – The Bell Bookshop

Clare Leighton’s rural life

Emma — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

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 men and women and the ancient methods they used to work the land that would soon vanish forever. Her two best-loved publications, The Farmer’s Year and Four Hedges, reflect this passion for the British countryside. Less well known are her books illustrating and describing rural life in the United States of America, where she emigrated and became a naturalized citizen in 1945, including Southern Harvest and Where Land Meets Sea: The Tide Line of Cape Cod.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 lavish anthology includes beautifully reproduced extracts and a detailed introduction to the artist’s life and work, reflecting Leighton’s lifelong fascination with the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land.

Four Hedges

Emma — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Phrases and images fill you with delight This is the most honest writing I’ve ever read’ Carol Klein.

Farmers Year

Emma — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In the early 1930s Clare Leighton began work on a sequence of wood engravings depicting traditional farming in England over the course of a calendar year. The country was in the grips of the Great Depression. Unemployment had doubled. Hunger marches were beginning to spread through towns and cities. Machines were replacing men and women on the land. Already established as one of the most about the editor: Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was born in London and studied at Brighton, Slade and Central schools of art. Travel in Europe nurtured an empathy for rural workers and their culture, reflected in much of her work. An accomplished writer, Clare Leighton was encouraged to write a series of sketches to accompany the twelve engravings she produced. The Farmer’s Year was the result, published in 1933 to great acclaim in Britain and North America, running to three impressions by February 1934.