TitleLanding
Artist
Clare Veronica Hope Leighton
(American, 1901 - 1989)
Date1931
MediumWood engraving
DimensionsImage size: 8 5/16 × 12 9/16 in.
Sheet size: 10 3/4 × 14 7/8 in.
Mat size: 16 × 20 in.
Edition16/100
SignedSigned lower right in graphite: "Clare Leighton"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, April 7, 1952
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1982.783
Label TextClare Veronica Leighton was born in London, England in 1901. Both her parents, Robert Leighton and Marie Connor, were writers. Leighton studied at the Slade School of Fine Arts of the University of London, and earned an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Colby College in Waterville, ME. She was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in NYC, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers in London; and the Society of American Graphic Artists. She exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago. She died in 1989, probably while residing in Woodbury, CT.Leighton came to the US frequently in the 1930s and eventually became a US citizen in 1946. She settled first in Baltimore, and then went south. She was a lecturer on art for two years at Duke University (sometime prior to 1945). She moved to Woodbury, CT in 1951. In 1954 she was given an award by the New England Society of New York for the greatest contribution to the culture of New England. She also won a first prize in the Logan International Engraving Exhibition of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930.
CVL's oeuvre consists primarily of wood engravings and woodcuts of genre scenes. However, CVL also wrote and illustrated her own books. She usually limited her prints to editions of 50, and her book illustrations were even smaller editions. Her extensive travels in the south resulted in a four-volume book of North Carolina folklore for Duke University, illustrated with "pictures of Negroes and coon hunts, moonshine stills, mountaineers and cock-fights" and she wrote and illustrated "Farmer's Year," "Four Hedges," "Country Matters," "Sometime Never," "Southern Harvest," "Give Us this Day," "Where Land Meets the Sea," and two juvenile books "The Musical Box," "The Wood that Came Back." She also illustrated books by other authors, including Thomas Hardy's, "The Return of the Native" and "Under the Greenwood Tree;" Emily Bronte "Wuthering Heights;" Thornton Wilder "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." Elizabeth Madox Roberts' "The Time of Man." She also illustrated Marie Campbell's "Folks Do Get Born," a study of midwives, and traveled through Georgia studying Negro midwives at their work. She illustrated a Book of Psalms for Doubleday. She was commissioned by Wedgwood China and created a series entitled "New England Industries" depicting traditional New England industries such as grist ills, whaling, farming, lobstering, ship building, quarrying, tobacco growing and oyster gathering. Wedgewood reproduced these woodblock engravings in underglaze in its Queen's Ware. In addition, she designed for Steuben Glass and designed 33 stained glass church windows for St. Paul's Cathedral, Worcester, Mass.
"Landing" depicts loggers loading or unloading a horse-drawn cart full of cut logs, and a river full of logs. "In the 1930s CVL's political commitment revealed itself through exhibitions with the AIA and illustrations for the "New Left Review." Her bold, close-up portrayal of laborers and agricultural and gardening tools has been likened to the style of "Neue Sachlichkeit" ("New Objectivity"). Leighton's prints mostly portray life and work on farms and logging camps, reflecting her love for the land and respect for the people working it. According to the glossary of logging terms, a "landing" is any place where logs are laid after being yarded (moved from the place they are felled to a landing) and before transport to the worksite.
The Boston Public Library held a major retrospective of her work in 1977.
