Women Artists

Clare Leighton

Date: 1931

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1996.33.a

Text Entries: Artist and author Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was raised in London and traveled widely during the 1920s and 1930s, emigrating to the United States from Britain in 1939. Nearly all of her wood engravings produced during these years, however, celebrate the perennial, rooted existence of farmers and other outdoor laborers, whom Leighton saw as obedient to the "natural rhythms" of the seasons. Her figures are often anonymous, subsumed into the teeming circular forms and boldly contrasted light and dark of her fields and forests. Leighton's formal education halted at age twelve because her mother, a popular romance novelist, believed that "school takes all the character and charm from a woman." The artist compensated for this as a young woman, however, regularly incorporating adventure into her search for engraving subjects; the Lumbercamp series was inspired by Leighton's solitary visit to the forests of Ottawa in the winter of 1930.

Clare Leighton

Date: 1931

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1996.33.b

Text Entries: Artist and author Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was raised in London and traveled widely during the 1920s and 1930s, emigrating to the United States from Britain in 1939. Nearly all of her wood engravings produced during these years, however, celebrate the perennial, rooted existence of farmers and other outdoor laborers, whom Leighton saw as obedient to the "natural rhythms" of the seasons. Her figures are often anonymous, subsumed into the teeming circular forms and boldly contrasted light and dark of her fields and forests. Leighton's formal education halted at age twelve because her mother, a popular romance novelist, believed that "school takes all the character and charm from a woman." The artist compensated for this as a young woman, however, regularly incorporating adventure into her search for engraving subjects; the Lumbercamp series was inspired by Leighton's solitary visit to the forests of Ottawa in the winter of 1930.

Clare Leighton

Date: 1931

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1996.33.c

Text Entries: Artist and author Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was raised in London and traveled widely during the 1920s and 1930s, emigrating to the United States from Britain in 1939. Nearly all of her wood engravings produced during these years, however, celebrate the perennial, rooted existence of farmers and other outdoor laborers, whom Leighton saw as obedient to the "natural rhythms" of the seasons. Her figures are often anonymous, subsumed into the teeming circular forms and boldly contrasted light and dark of her fields and forests. Leighton's formal education halted at age twelve because her mother, a popular romance novelist, believed that "school takes all the character and charm from a woman." The artist compensated for this as a young woman, however, regularly incorporating adventure into her search for engraving subjects; the Lumbercamp series was inspired by Leighton's solitary visit to the forests of Ottawa in the winter of 1930.

Clare Leighton

Date: 1931

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1996.33.d

Text Entries: Artist and author Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was raised in London and traveled widely during the 1920s and 1930s, emigrating to the United States from Britain in 1939. Nearly all of her wood engravings produced during these years, however, celebrate the perennial, rooted existence of farmers and other outdoor laborers, whom Leighton saw as obedient to the "natural rhythms" of the seasons. Her figures are often anonymous, subsumed into the teeming circular forms and boldly contrasted light and dark of her fields and forests. Leighton's formal education halted at age twelve because her mother, a popular romance novelist, believed that "school takes all the character and charm from a woman." The artist compensated for this as a young woman, however, regularly incorporating adventure into her search for engraving subjects; the Lumbercamp series was inspired by Leighton's solitary visit to the forests of Ottawa in the winter of 1930.

Clare Leighton

Date: 1931

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1996.33.e

Text Entries: Artist and author Clare Leighton (1898-1989) was raised in London and traveled widely during the 1920s and 1930s, emigrating to the United States from Britain in 1939. Nearly all of her wood engravings produced during these years, however, celebrate the perennial, rooted existence of farmers and other outdoor laborers, whom Leighton saw as obedient to the "natural rhythms" of the seasons. Her figures are often anonymous, subsumed into the teeming circular forms and boldly contrasted light and dark of her fields and forests. Leighton's formal education halted at age twelve because her mother, a popular romance novelist, believed that "school takes all the character and charm from a woman." The artist compensated for this as a young woman, however, regularly incorporating adventure into her search for engraving subjects; the Lumbercamp series was inspired by Leighton's solitary visit to the forests of Ottawa in the winter of 1930.

Clare Leighton

Date: 1931

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1996.33.f

Text Entries: <i>(Re)Presenting Women, </i>Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 16, 2001-January 13, 2002.<br><br> <i>The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840-1940 (Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains 1840-1940), </i>Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 15-May 25, 2003; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 8-August 17, 2003. [exh. cat.]