Leighton, Clare (1899–1989)
Leighton, Clare (1899–1989)
British illustrator and wood engraver. Born Clare Veronica Hope Leighton, April 12, 1898, in London, England; died Nov 4, 1989, in Watertown, CT; dau. of Robert (literary critic and journalist) and Marie (Connor) Leighton (novelist); attended Brighton School of Art, Slade School of Fine Art, University of London, 1921–23, and London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts; m. Henry Noel Brailsford; lived in Woodbury, Connecticut.
Along with Wanda Gág, was one of the foremost practitioners of wood engraving of her day; won 1st prize at International Exhibition of Engraving at Chicago Art Institute (1930); represented England in wood-engraving at International Exhibition in Venice (1934); awarded DFA, Colby College (1940); immigrated to US (1939); became a naturalized citizen (1945); wrote and illustrated The Farmer's Year (1933), Four Hedges, a month-by-month journal of her garden in the Chiltern Hills (1935), Country Matters (1937), Sometime, Never (1939), Southern Harvest (1942), along with several books for children; also illustrated Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Tomlinson's The Sea and the Jungle, and Hardy's The Return of the Native; works reside in permanent collection of Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, National Galleries of Stockholm and Canada, Boston Fine Arts Museum, Baltimore Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY.
See also autobiography Tempestuous Petticoat (Reinhart, 1947).