Hester Margaret Sainsbury (1890-1967) was a British artist, dancer, poet and illustrator.
Life and work
Hester Sainsbury's parents were Harrington Sainsbury (1853-1936), court physician to
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
,
and Maria Tuke (1861–1947).
They married in Marylebone parish church, London on 26 March 1889; Hester was born in the spring of 1890.
She grew up among artists such as
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...
,
Gwen Raverat
Gwendolen Mary "Gwen" Raverat (née Darwin; 26 August 1885 – 11 February 1957), was an English wood engraver who was a founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers. Her memoir ''Period Piece'' was published in 1952.
Biography
Gwendolen Ma ...
and the Omega Workshop Group. Her brother Phillip was one of the founders of the
Favil Press, and later ran the
Cayme Press, for both of which she illustrated several books.
[
She was trained in modern dance by Margaret Morris. Around 1914-1915, she ran a group "formed to speak and act her amazingly vital rhythmic verse-plays", influencing the development of artistic drama in Britain, and inspiring people such as the artist ]Maxwell Armfield
Maxwell Ashby Armfield (5 October 1881 – 23 January 1972) was an English artist, illustrator and writer.
Life
Born to a Quaker family in Ringwood, Hampshire, Ringwood, Hampshire, Armfield was educated at Sidcot School and at Leighton Park Sch ...
. Her group was known before the war as the Clarissa Club, which she and another dancer, Kathleen Dillon founded and ran at 71 Royal Hospital Road
Royal Hospital Road is a street in Chelsea, London, Chelsea, London, England. It runs between Chelsea Embankment on the north bank of the River Thames to the southwest and a junction with Lower Sloane Street, Pimlico Road, London, Pimlico Road ...
, Chelsea. By 1914 its name had changed to the Choric School. The whole of the October 1915 issue of ''Others'' magazine was devoted to "The Choric School", with contributions by Sainsbury and the poets Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...
, Kathleen Dillon and John Rodker
John Rodker (18 December 1894 – 6 October 1955) was an English writer, modernist poet, and publisher of modernist writers.
Biography
John Rodker was born on 18 December 1894 in Manchester, into a Jewish immigrant family. The family moved ...
.[
She lived the Bohemian life of an artist; her lover was the Japanese playwright Kori Torahiko between 1917 and 1926, when he died.][ She married the ]Vorticist
Vorticism was a London-based Modernism, modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist mani ...
painter Frederick Etchells
Frederick Etchells (14 September 1886 – 16 August 1973) was an England, English artist and architect.
Biography
Etchells was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. His early education was at the London School of Kensington, now known as The Royal ...
on 13 May 1932;[ she illustrated a number of books for his company, Haslewood Books.][ She and Etchells moved away from London's artistic scene to France House, ]East Hagbourne
East Hagbourne is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish about south of Didcot and south of Oxford. It was part of Berkshire until the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. The United K ...
, Oxfordshire, which he personally restored. ,West Challow
West Challow is a village and civil parish about west of the market town of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse, England. The village is on Childrey Brook, which is a tributary of the River Ock. West Challow was part of Berkshire until the 19 ...
then called Holme Lea, a Queen Anne property. They lived at Holme Lea between 1939 and 1944. During that time they acquired and renovated another house in West Challow into which she, her husband and daughter moved, in 1944.
Her artistic career largely came to an end on moving to Berkshire, though she illustrated an edition of Torahiko Kori's works, published in Tokyo in 1936.John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architect ...
was one of their neighbours.
Works
Books
* ''Poems'' (1916), rinted for Phillip Sainsbury
* ''Holy women: and other poems and wood cuts'' (1921), Favil Press.
* ''Meanderlane: tales and wood engravings'' (1925), Cayme Press.
* ''Noah's ark'' (1926, reprinted Nov. 1926), Cayme Press.
Books illustrated
The cover of the first edition of Henry Williamson
Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history, ruralism and the First World War. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 ...
's ''Tarka the Otter
''Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-Life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers'' is a 1927 novel by English writer Henry Williamson, first published by G. P. Putnam's Sons with an introduction by Sir John Fortescue. It won the Hawthornd ...
'' featured one of her wood engravings.Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...
; Boas, Frederick S. (1928). ''The Heroycall epistles of the learned poet Publius Ovidius Naso'', London.
* Morand, Paul; Roche, Charles-Emile (translator) (1928). ''Earth Girdled'', A.A. Knopf. Original title ''Rien que la terre''.
* Hughes-Stanton, Blair (1929). ''The Apocrypha : according to the authorized version with wood-engravings'', Cresset Press.
* Hill, John (1930). ''Lucina sine concubitu'', Golden Cockerel Press.
* Mathers, Edward Powys (1927–1930). ''Eastern Love'', 12 volumes, translated from the Arabic; J. Rodker for subscribers.
* Kori, Torahiko (1936). ''Complete works of Torahiko Kori'', Tokyo: Sogensha Press.
* Roth, Samuel (1947). ''Halfway'', New York.
In museums and galleries
* British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
(prints from 1922–1931)[
]
References
Further reading
* Tucker, Peter (1990) . "Hester Sainsbury: a book illustrator of the 1920s" in ''The Private Library'', Fourth Series, Volume 3, number 3, pp. 112–136.
External links
Tate Gallery:Photograph of Henry Scott Tuke with his sister’s four children
The Guardian: Rosalind Wyatt exhibition
(images, including kimono
The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn Garment collars in hanfu#Youren (right lapel), left side wrapped over ri ...
with love letters from Torahiko Kori to Sainsbury)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sainsbury, Hester Margaret
1890 births
1967 deaths
British artists
British engravers
20th-century British engravers