Clare Veronica Leighton 1898-1989

Clare Veronica Hope Leighton (1898 - 1989) was an English/American
artist, writer and illustrator, best known for her wood engravings.

Clare Leighton was born in London on 12 April 1898[1], 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, Leighton visited the United States on
a number of lecture tours. In 1939, at the conclusion of a lengthy
relationship with the radical journalist Henry Brailsford, she
emigrated to the US and became a naturalised citizen in 1945.

Over the course of a long and 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 transept
windows of Worcester Cathedral, (USA).

Leighton had two brothers, Roland and Evelyn. The older brother Roland
Leighton, immortalised in Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth,
was killed in action, December 1915. Evelyn became a captain in the
Royal Navy and died in 1969.

The best known of her books are The Farmer's Year (1933; a calendar of
English husbandry), Four Hedges - A Gardener's Chronicle (1935; the
development of a garden from a meadow she had bought in the Chilterns)
and Tempestuous Petticoat; The story of an invincible Edwardian (1948;
describing her childhood and her bohemian mother). Autobiographical
text and illustrations are available in "Clare Leighton: the growth
and shaping of an artist-writer", published 2009.