Diana Bloomfield, née Wallace (25 November 1915 – 30 July 2010) was a British wood-engraver, best known for her bookplates and commercial work.

Biography

Bloomfield grew up in Harrow, one of a family of four girls, and went to Harrow Art School. In 1934 she went to work at the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...

. There she met Kenneth Bloomfield, whom she married in 1938.

Brian North Lee Brian North Lee FSA, (27 December 1936 in Syston, Leicestershire – 24 February 2007 in London) was a former teacher, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society of historians ...

, 'Profile of an Artist: Diana Bloomfield' in ''Bookplate Journal'' (March 1986), published by the Bookplate Society. In 1947 she started to attend classes at the

Hampstead Garden Suburb Hampstead Garden Suburb is a suburb of London, north of Hampstead, west of Highgate and east of Golders Green. It is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations. It is an example of early twentieth-century ...

Institute, where she studied lettering with a pupil of

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as "the greatest artist-craftsma ...

and

Edward Johnston Edward Johnston, CBE (San José de Mayo, Uruguay 11 February 1872 – 26 November 1944) was a British craftsman who is regarded, with Rudolf Koch, as the father of modern calligraphy, in the particular form of the broad-edged pen as a ...

, textile design, and

wood-engraving Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively lo ...

Her work in wood engraving

Bloomfield had one lesson from R. John Beedham who then fell ill. She experimented and began to engrave drawings from her sketch books. When she had been engraving for some time she was advised to send her work to

Beatrice Warde Beatrice Lamberton Warde (September 20, 1900 – September 16, 1969, née Beatrice Becker) was a twentieth-century writer and scholar of typography. As a marketing manager for the British Monotype Corporation, she was influential in the deve ...

, the editor of the Monotype Recorder. Warde was very encouraging and helpful, and recommended Bloomfield to a number of publishers, including the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

and

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, 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 ...

.Diana Bloomfield, ''The Engraver's Cut: Diana Bloomfield'' (London, Primrose Academy, 1995). She produced engravings for cover designs for the OUP ''World Classics'' and ''Standard Authors'', and their quarterly ''Periodical''. She also engraved cover roundels for the ''Penguin Classics'' and some 30 calligraphic titles for the ''Pocket Poets'' series published by Edward Hulton's ''Vista Books''. Another major part of her work was the 70-80

bookplates An , also known as a bookplate (or book-plate, as it was commonly styled until the early 20th century), is a printed or decorative label pasted into a book, often on the front endpaper, to indicate ownership. Simple typographical bookplates are ...

and letterheads that she engraved between 1953 and 1972. The major influence on this aspect of her work was

Reynolds Stone Alan Reynolds Stone, CBE, RDI (13 March 1909 – 23 June 1979) was an English wood engraver, engraver, designer, typographer and painter. Biography Stone was born on 13 March 1909 at Eton College, where both his grandfather, E. D. Stone, and ...

, whom she described as ''the great master of engraved bookplates and engraved lettering, not just for this century, but for all time''.Diana Bloomfield, 'A Fearful Joy' in ''Private Library'' (Spring 1974), published by the

Private Libraries Association The Private Libraries Association (PLA) is an international society of book collectors with 450 individual members and over 100 institutional members. The majority of members are based in Britain, but there are also members in the United States, C ...

. Her bookplates rely on the flourishes and curlicues of Stone and Leo Wyatt rather than the classic simplicity and elegance of Eric Gill, Johnston and Philip Hagreen. Bloomfield did produce wood engravings for some books. The first was a commission from Penguin - the ''Puffin Quartet of Poets'' (1958). This was followed by ''Come Hither'' (1960), a new edition of Walter de la Mare's classic anthology for children. The most elusive of her books with wood engravings is ''Twenty-five Poems'' by Evelyn Ansell (1963), published at the Vine Press in an edition of 100 copies. She illustrated nine books in all, seven with wood engravings, one - ''The Man's Book'' (1958) - with scraperboards and another - ''Great Palaces'' (1964) - with pen and ink drawings.

Overview of her life and work

In terms of her training and later contacts Bloomfield, who was active in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, stands rather apart from the mainstream of the wood engraving world of her period. She was not a member of the revived

Society of Wood Engravers The Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) is a UK-based artists’ exhibiting society formed in 1920, one of its founder-members being Eric Gill. Membership is restricted to artists who use wood engraving, as distinct from the separate discipline of ...

. Her work was largely commercial and she illustrated few books. She was, however, very highly regarded as an engraver of bookplates, and as a teacher of wood engraving at the

City Literary Institute City Lit is an adult education college in Holborn, central London, founded by the London County Council in 1919, which has charitable status. It offers part-time courses across four schools and five "centres of expertise", covering humanities an ...

, London, the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

and the

Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider Lewes (district), district of the same name. It lies on the River Ouse, Sussex, River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the Sou ...

and District Visual Arts Association.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloomfield, Diana 1915 births 2010 deaths 20th-century British illustrators English wood engravers People from Harrow, London

Biography

Her work in wood engraving

Overview of her life and work

Further reading

References