Edna Clarke Hall (née Waugh; 29 June 1879 – 16 November 1979) was a

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

artist, etcher, lithographer and draughtsman who is mainly known for her many illustrations to ''

Wuthering Heights ''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...

'' by

Emily Brontë Emily Jane Brontë (, commonly ; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, ''Wuthering Heights'', now considered a classic of English literature. She also published a book of poet ...

.Biography of Lady Edna Clarke Hall
Tate Online, accessed 3 February 2012Alison Thomas, 'Hall, Edna Clarke , Lady Clarke Hall (1879–1979)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 3 Feb 2012
/ref>

Early life and education

Born Edna Waugh in

Shipbourne Shipbourne ( ) is a village and civil parish situated between the towns of Sevenoaks and Tonbridge, in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in the English county of Kent. In 2020 it was named as the most expensive village in Kent. It is located i ...

, a tiny village in the Kent hop fields, she was the tenth of the twelve children of the social campaigner

Benjamin Waugh Benjamin Waugh (20 February 183911 March 1908) was a Victorian social reformer and campaigner who founded the UK charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the late 19th century, and also wrote various hy ...

who was a cofounder of the

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is a British child protection charity. History Victorian era On a trip to New York in 1881, Liverpudlian businessman Thomas Agnew was inspired by a visit to the New York ...

(NSPCC).Elain Harwood
Obituary of Denis Clarke Hall
''The Independent'', Tuesday 8 August 2006. Accessed 3 February 2012 In 1881, the Waughs moved to

Southgate Southgate or South Gate may refer to: Places Australia *Southgate, Sylvania *Southgate Arts and Leisure Precinct, an area within Southbank, Victoria Canada *Southgate, Ontario, a township in Grey County * Southgate, Middlesex County, Ontario Ed ...

, and in 1889, after her father resigned the ministry to dedicate himself to the NSPCC, the family settled in

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

, Hertfordshire. The young Edna Waugh showed an early talent for drawing. When she was fourteen, a barrister friend of her father, William Clarke Hall (1866-1932) arranged for her to enter 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 ...

. Whilst there, Edna was taught by

Henry Tonks Henry Tonks, FRCS (9 April 1862 – 8 January 1937) was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a caricaturist. He became an influential art teacher. He was one of the first British arti ...

, "the most renowned and formidable teacher of his generation". She studied alongside Gwen and

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...

Ida Nettleship Ida Margaret Nettleship (24 January 1877 – 14 March 1907) was an English artist who is best known as the first wife of artist Augustus John. Biography Nettleship was born in Hampstead, the eldest of the three daughters of animal painter J ...

Ambrose McEvoy Arthur Ambrose McEvoy (12 August 1877 – 4 January 1927) was an English artist. His early works are landscapes and interiors with figures, in a style influenced by James McNeill Whistler. Later he gained success as a portrait painter, mainly o ...

and

Albert Rutherston Albert Daniel Rutherston (5 December 1881 – 14 July 1953) was a British artist. He painted figures and landscape, illustrated books and designed posters and stage sets. Personal life and education Albert Daniel Rothenstein born 5 December 18 ...

, and made many drawings and

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

s of her new friends. She won many prizes and certificates for her drawings and in 1897 was awarded a Slade scholarship. Although a couple of oil paintings, painted under Gwen John's guidance, exist, Edna's favoured medium as a painter was watercolour.. Accessed 23 May 2012.

Marriage

The 19-year-old Edna married William Clarke Hall on 22 December 1898. Although he had previously encouraged and supported his wife's studies, there were tensions between Edna's artistic ambitions and her husband's expectation that she conform to a traditional wifely role. For the next two decades, Edna Clarke Hall's art became a very personal activity only shared with close friends and occasionally shown in group exhibitions. Shortly after their marriage, the Clarke Halls rented a sixteenth-century house called 'Great Tomkins' on Upminster Common. This house reminded Edna of ''

'' by

, inspiring the first of the many illustrations of scenes from the novel that she would create.Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights c.1910–11
, pen and ink sketch. Tate Gallery, London, accessed 3 February 2012 For the rest of her artistic life Clarke Hall added to the ''Wuthering Heights'' drawings and etchings during periods of emotional crisis. They portrayed scenes such as the distraught

Catherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...

crying for the absent Heathcliff and Heathcliff supporting the dying Catherine.Heathcliffe (sic) supporting Catherine
pen, ink and watercolour. Tate Gallery, London, accessed 8 February 2012 One of her drawings of the latter scene was inscribed with the quote 'Let me alone! If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it'. Apart from ''Wuthering Heights'', Edna's sons, Justin (b. 1905) and Denis (1910–2006) were key subjects for her art. She frequently painted them whilst they were otherwise absorbed in their own pursuits, creating tender yet unsentimental portraits, typically in watercolour. In 1914, Henry Tonks persuaded his former pupil to hold a one-woman show at the

Chenil Galleries The Chenil Gallery (often referred to as the Chenil Galleries, or New Chenil Galleries) was a British art gallery and sometime-music studio in Chelsea, London between 1905 and 1927, and later the location of various businesses referencing this ear ...

in London. This show was a critical success, with one review describing her as a 'sensitive and expressive draughtswoman who reaches a masterly plane' and admiring her 'individual and instinctive' use of colour.

Breakdown and artistic identity

Edna Clarke Hall suffered a

nervous breakdown A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

in 1919. Through the assistance of Tonks and the psychologist

Henry Head Sir Henry Head, FRS (4 August 1861 – 8 October 1940) was an English neurologist who conducted pioneering work into the somatosensory system and sensory nerves. Much of this work was conducted on himself, in collaboration with the psychiatrist ...

she addressed some of the problems with her marriage and was able to reassert her artistic identity. In 1922 her husband set up a studio in South Square, Gray's Inn, where she could work. Between 1924 and 1941 she exhibited regularly at the Redfern Gallery in London. Her 1926 show led to

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

's art critic declaring her 'the most imaginative artist in England'. Edna Clarke Hall wrote and published two volumes of poetry, ''Poems'' (1926) and ''Facets'' (1930). Three of her 'Poem Pictures', which merged illustration and text in a manner reminiscent of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

, appear as lithographs in ''Facets''. William Clarke Hall was knighted in 1932 for his work towards reforming child law, at which point his wife became Lady Clarke Hall, but he died later that year. A Trust was formed by Mrs F. Samuel, Mrs. E. Bishop, and Michel H. Salaman, who were mutual friends of the Clarke Halls, to enable Edna to retain her studio and continue working. In 1939 a retrospective of her drawings was held at Manchester. In 1941, Clarke Hall's London studio was destroyed, along with much of her work, by enemy action during the

Blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...

Later life and death

The loss of her studio was a devastating blow. Clarke Hall gradually painted less and less until ceasing completely in the early 1950s. She lived out the rest of her life with her niece and companion, Mary Fearnley Sander, until her death, aged 100, on 16 November 1979. Her son, Denis Clarke Hall, was President of the

Architectural Association The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...

in 1958–59.

References

External links