Titles: The Return of the Native - The Straw Hut. : The Well. : The Shop. [Lot of 3]
Artist: Clare Leighton (1901-1989)
Wood engraving, 1929.
Edition 30.
Unsigned.
From Clare Leighton's illustrated version of "The Return of the Native" by Thomas Hardy.
Image sizes (The Shop) 1 1/16 x 2 9/16" (2.7 x 6.3 cm); (The Well) 1 3/16 x 1 3/16" (3 x 3 cm); (The Straw Hut) 1 x 1 9/16" (2.5 x 3.8 cm).

#104, 103 and 97 in "Clare Leighton : An Exhibition" by the Boston Public Library.

Clare Leighton was an English-American artist, writer, and illustrator, best known for her wood engravings. Born in London on April 12, 1898, he was the daughter of Robert Leighton (1858-1934) and Marie Connor Leighton (1865-1941), both authors. Her early efforts at painting were encouraged by her parents and her uncle Jack Leighton, an artist and illustrator. In 1915, she began formal studies at the Brighton College of Art and later trained at the Slade School of Fine Art (1921-23), and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where she studied wood engraving under Noel Rooke.

During the late 1920s and 1930s, Clare Leighton visited the United States on a number of lecture tours. In 1939 she immigrated to the US and became a naturalized citizen in 1945. Over the course of her prolific career, she wrote and illustrated numerous books praising the virtues of the countryside and the people who worked the land. During the 1920s and 1930s, as the world around her became increasingly technological, industrial, and urban, Leighton portrayed rural working men and women. In the 1950s she created designs for Steuben Glass, Wedgwood plates, several stained-glass windows for churches in New England and for the windows of Worcester Cathedral, Massachusetts (USA). Leighton produced more than 900 different wood engravings during her lifetime.

Condition: All three are in very good condition. No tears or stains.