Clare Marie Veronica Leighton, sometimes Clara Ellaline Hope Leighton or Clare Veronica Hope Leighton, (12 April 18984 November 1989) was an English/American artist, writer and illustrator, best known for her
wood engraving
Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and ...
s.
Early life and education
Clare Leighton was born in London on 12 April 1898,
[Campbell, 2004] the daughter of
Robert Leighton
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...
(18581934) and
Marie Connor Leighton
Marie Connor Leighton (4 February 186728 January 1941) was a prolific author of serial fiction and melodramatic novels. She married fellow writer Robert Leighton and her most famous work ''Convict 99'' was written jointly with him. However her wr ...
(18671941), both authors. She was baptised with the name Clare Marie Veronica Leighton on 26 May 1898 at All Saints' Church in
St John's Wood
St John's Wood is a district in the City of Westminster, London, lying 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Traditionally the northern part of the ancient parish and Metropolitan Borough of Marylebone, it extends east to west from ...
. Clare lived her early life in the shadow of her older brother,
Roland
Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...
– her mother's favorite; the family nickname for Clare was "the bystander". Her mother was dismissive of Clare's looks, ambitions and talents,
while she said of Roland that: "He is the only one of my children who is beautiful enough to be worth dressing".
Nevertheless, Clare's 1947 biography of her mother ''Tempestuous Petticoat: the story of an Invincible Edwardian''
succeeded in "making her readers envy this fantastic mother, even share some of the affection which she feels for her."
Her early efforts at painting were encouraged by her father and her uncle Jack Leighton, an artist and illustrator. Clare and her uncle made several sketching trips together to mainland Europe.
In 1915, Leighton began formal studies at the
Brighton College of Art
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
and later trained at the
Slade School of Fine Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
(1921–23) and the
Central School of Arts and Crafts
The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...
, where she studied wood engraving under
Noel Rooke
Noel Rooke (1881–1953) was a British wood-engraver and artist. His ideas and teaching made a major contribution to the revival of British wood-engraving in the twentieth century.
Biography
Rooke was born in Acton, London and he would remain in ...
.
After completing her studies, Leighton took time to travel through Europe, stopping in Italy, France and the Balkans. She sketched landscapes and peasant workers, developing an affinity for portraying rural life.
Career
During the late 1920s and 1930s, Leighton visited the United States on a number of lecture tours, emigrating to the US in 1939. In 1930, the
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
awarded her with the Mr. And Mrs. Frank G. Logan First Prize ($100). She lived in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
for a while and became friends with
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...
. Leighton became a naturalized citizen in 1945. From 1943 to 1945 she was a member of the Department of Art, Aesthetics, and Music at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
. In 1945 she was elected into the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1949.
Over the course of a long and prolific career, Leighton wrote and illustrated numerous books praising the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land. She was the first woman to produce a book on wood-engraving (''Wood-Engraving and Woodcuts'', 1932). This played an important part in popularizing the medium. During the 1920s and 1930s, as the world around her became increasingly technological, industrial and urban, Leighton continued to paint rural working men and women. These included a 1938 poster design for
London Transport promoting weekend walks in the countryside.
In the 1950s she created designs for
Steuben Glass
Steuben Glass is an American art glass manufacturer, founded in the summer of 1903 by Frederick Carder and Thomas G. Hawkes in Corning, New York, which is in Steuben County, from which the company name was derived. Hawkes was the owner of the la ...
,
Wedgwood
Wedgwood is an English fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd. It was rapid ...
plates, several stained-glass windows for churches in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
and for the transept windows of the
Cathedral of Saint Paul (Worcester, Massachusetts)
The Cathedral of Saint Paul — informally known as Saint Paul's Cathedral — is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester. It is located at 38 Chatham Street in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts. Built between 1868 ...
.
The best known of her books are ''The Farmer's Year'' (1933; a calendar of English husbandry), ''Four Hedges – A Gardener's Chronicle'' (1935; the development of a garden from a meadow she had bought in the
Chilterns) and ''Tempestuous Petticoat; The story of an Invincible Edwardian'' (1948; describing her childhood and her
bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
mother). Autobiographical text and illustrations are available in ''Clare Leighton: The growth and shaping of an artist-writer'', published 2009. One of her most notable illustrative endeavors was creating 16 woodcuts for Thornton Wilder's illustrated edition of ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' (Longmans, Green and Company 1929). Examples of her work were included in ‘Print and Prejudice: Women Printmakers, 1700-1930’, an exhibition at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
in London, 2022-23.
Personal life
Leighton had two brothers: the older,
Roland Leighton
Roland Aubrey Leighton (27 March 1895 – 23 December 1915) was a British poet and soldier, made posthumously famous by his fiancée Vera Brittain's memoir, ''Testament of Youth''.
Life and career
His parents, Robert Leighton and Marie Connor, ...
, was killed in action in December 1915, and is immortalized in
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir ''Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the First ...
's memoir, ''
Testament of Youth
''Testament of Youth'' is the first instalment, covering 1900–1925, in the memoir of Vera Brittain (1893–1970). It was published in 1933. Brittain's memoir continues with ''Testament of Experience'', published in 1957, and encompassing th ...
''; the younger Evelyn, a Royal Navy officer, received the OBE in 1942.
Clare Leighton met the radical journalist
H. N. Brailsford
Henry Noel Brailsford (25 December 1873 – 23 March 1958) was the most prolific British left-wing journalist of the first half of the 20th century. A founding member of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage in 1907, he resigned from his job a ...
in 1928,
and they lived together for several years. He was separated from
Jane Esdon Brailsford who refused him a divorce.
[F. M. Leventhal, ‘Brailsford , Jane Esdon (1874–1937)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200]
accessed 10 Nov 2017
/ref> When Brailsford's wife died in 1937, leaving the way clear for the couple to marry, he suffered an emotional breakdown, destroying his relationship with Leighton who left for a new life in the US in 1939. She never married.
Leighton died 4 November 1989. Her ashes are buried in a cemetery in Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut on the Naugatuck River, southwest of Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury is the second-largest city in New Haven County, Connecticut. According to the 2020 US Census, in 20 ...
.
References
Further reading
* Colin Campbell, ‘Leighton, Clara Ellaline Hope (1898–1989)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
NMWA biography
External links
Gallery of works at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
Maier Museum at Randolph College, Clare Leighton
Guide to the Clare Leighton Papers at Duke University
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leighton, Clare
1898 births
1989 deaths
Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design
Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art
American engravers
American women printmakers
Artists from London
English emigrants to the United States
English engravers
English illustrators
English printmakers
English wood engravers
Duke University faculty
National Academy of Design members
20th-century American women artists
20th-century American printmakers
20th-century British printmakers
Women engravers
American women academics
20th-century engravers
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters