Yale Center for British Art, Friends of British Art Fund
Copyright Status:
Copyright Not Evaluated
Related Content:
View a description and listing of collection contents in the finding aid
http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/ycba.mss.0007
Classification:
Archives & Manuscripts
Notes:
Clare Leighton was an important 20th century wood engraver well known as an author and illustrator of books, many with rural themes. In 1951 and 1952 she worked intensively on Josiah Wedgwood's commission for a series of 12 plates portraying traditional New England industries. The work took her all over the Northeast, and upon its completion she decided to move to Massachusetts (she would later settle in Woodbury, Connecticut). Although she broke new ground in designing the Wedgwood plates, she finished the project feeling both triumphant and exhausted. In the unpublished notes towards an autobiography she made in old age, she recollected: "Once I had finished the Wedgwoods, I realised I needed to forget wood engraving. It is no wonder that after so many years, I found myself growing exhausted by it. I felt I was running the risk of repeating myself and ceasing to grow." She saw the Wedgwood plates as one of her most ambitious projects, perhaps even the culmination of her career.