Hilary Stebbing

Last updated
Hilary Stebbing
Born1915
Henfield
Died1996
Winchelsea
NationalityBritish
Alma mater Central School of Art and Design
SpouseJohn ‘Jack’ Baker

Hilary Stebbing (1915-1996) was an artist, illustrator and children's author particularly associated with Puffin Books, and active in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Contents

Biography

She was a student at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in the late 1930s, where she was a contemporary of Monica Walker [1] and the stained-glass artist, conservator and author John ‘Jack’ Baker, whom she married in 1946. [2]

Her woodblock print 'Heaven, Hell and Purgatory' was included in the annual Exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1939. It was shown again in the Society's Centenary Exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 2020 and illustrated in the catalogue. [3] It is also reproduced in Simon Lawrence’s history of the Society, Spitsticks and Multiples (Fleece Press 2022). [4]

She exhibited at Court Lodge Gallery, Horton Kirby, Dartford, Derbyshire County Council Museum Service and Rye Society of Artists. [1]

Works

Legacy

The University of the Arts London (the successor to the Central School of Arts and Crafts) has six of Stebbing's works in its collection. [1]

The two Bantam books, The Silly Rabbits and The Animals Went in Two by Two, were republished in a limited edition by Design for Today. [6]

Two limited edition giclee prints were produced in 2022 to support development of the new House of Illustration at New River Head in Islington, London. [7]

In October 2022, Stebbing was included alongside Kathleen Hale, Eric Ravilious, Edward Ardizzone, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse in the exhibition 'Picture Books For All: the fine printing of W. S. Cowell Ltd.' at The Hold heritage centre in Ipswich. [8] [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Nicholson (artist)</span> British painter, engraver and illustrator (1872–1949)

Sir William Newzam Prior Nicholson was a British painter of still-life, landscape and portraits. He also worked as a printmaker in techniques including woodcut, wood-engraving and lithography, as an illustrator, as an author of children's books and as a designer for the theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penguin Books</span> British publishing house

Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other stores for sixpence, bringing high-quality fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. Its success showed that large audiences existed for serious books. It also affected modern British popular culture significantly through its books concerning politics, the arts, and science.

Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feodor Stepanovich Rojankovsky</span> Russian painter

Feodor Stepanovich "Rojan" Rojankovsky, also known as Rojan, was a Russian émigré illustrator. He is well known both for children's book illustration and for erotic art. He won the 1956 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration from the American Library Association, recognizing Frog Went A-Courtin' by John Langstaff.

Colin McNaughton is a British writer and illustrator of over seventy children's books. He is also a poet, focusing mainly on humorous children's poetry. He trained in graphic design at the Central School of Art and Design in London followed by an MA in illustration at the Royal College of Art. He lives in London.

Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg were a British married couple who created many children's books, including picture books that regularly appear at the top of "most popular" lists for public libraries. They worked together for 20 years until Janet's death from cancer in 1994. He wrote the books and she illustrated them. Allan Ahlberg has also written dozens of books with other illustrators.

Brenda Rawnsley was a British arts campaigner who devised and managed the innovative School Prints scheme that provided artwork to primary schools. She was decorated for her services during the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Worsley Adamson</span> American British illustrator and cartoonist

George Worsley Adamson, RE, MCSD was a book illustrator, writer, and cartoonist, who held American and British dual citizenship from 1931.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Dazeley</span> British photographer

Peter Dazeley known as Dazeley, is a British photographer living and working in London, known for fine art, advertising, anamorphic and nude photography, as well as flower photography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enid Marx</span> English painter and designer (1902–1998)

Enid Crystal Dorothy Marx, RDI, was an English painter and designer, best known for her industrial textile designs for the London Transport Board and the Utility furniture Scheme. Marx was the first female engraver to be designated as a Royal Designer for Industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penguin Collectors Society</span> UK historical society (1973-)

The Penguin Collectors Society (PCS) is a charity based in the United Kingdom. Its main purpose is to promote the study and research of all aspects of Penguin Books, the publishing company founded by Allen Lane in 1935.

Brian Webb is a graphic designer and director of Webb & Webb Design Limited.

Dora Margaret Batty was a British designer, working in illustration, poster design, pottery and textiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bartley Powell</span> British graphic designer

Percy Bartley Powell was a graphic designer for Great Britain from the 1940s to 1977, a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry. During his career, he created graphics and illustrations for books, postal stamps, advertising, and annual reports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Townend</span> British illustrator & graphic artist (1918-2005)

Jack Townend (1918–2005) was a British illustrator and graphic artist. He was best known for his lithographic children's books, his contemporaries include Jan Lewitt, George Him, Hans Tisdall and Barnett Freedman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Gardner (designer)</span>

James "Leslie" Gardner OBE RDI was a British museum and exhibition designer. Although most widely known for his exhibition work, Gardner also undertook illustration and ship design work. His archive is located at the University of Brighton Design Archives.

Winifred Maria Louise Austen was an English illustrator, painter, etcher and aquatint engraver, particularly known for her detailed depictions of small mammals and birds.

Isabel Alexander (1910-1996) was a British artist and illustrator whose work encompassed drawing, water colour, oils, lithography, lino-printing and three-dimensional work, and whose output ranged from socially-engaged documentation of the lives and work of Welsh coalminers, Irish fishermen and English farmworkers through book illustration to landscapes, seascapes and abstracts. Like many other women artists of her generation she struggled during her lifetime for opportunity and recognition in a field that was overwhelmingly male and her significance has only belatedly begun to be acknowledged.

Joy Claire Allison Dalby is a British artist and book illustrator who mainly depicts botanical subjects and who works in watercolours, gouache and wood engraving.

W.S. Cowell Ltd was a British printing company that produced a variety of books, including popular children's literature of the 1930s and prestigious coffee table books. Established in 1818, the company played a significant role in the history of printing in Ipswich. The company developed the Plastocowell printing process. However after a number of mergers in the late twentieth century, the name was finally dropped by its corporate owners in 1988.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Hilary Stebbing". Makers A-Z: individuals and organisations. University of the Arts London . Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  2. "News: John 'Jack' Baker". Vidimus: The Only Online Magazine Devoted to Medieval Stained Glass (15). February 2008. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  3. Anne Desmet, Box of Delights: Wood Engravings from the Ashmolean Collection, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, 2020, p.24, fig 21
  4. Vol. 2, p.542
  5. Phil Baines, Puffin by Design: 70 Years of Imagination 1940-2010, Allen Lane, 2010, p.28-29
  6. "Hilary Stebbing and her Bantam Picture Books. A limited edition of 850 numbered copies". Design for Today. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  7. Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration [@@qbcentre] (21 June 2022). "Our friends at the Hilary Stebbing Archive have created two new limited edition prints from their collection!" (Tweet) via Twitter.
  8. "Picture Books For All: the fine printing of W.S. Cowell Ltd". Suffolk Archives Foundation. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  9. Nigel Ball (19 June 2022). "Picture books for all: the journey of an exhibition" . Retrieved 2 November 2022.

Further reading