Mabel Charlotte Alleyne (31 March 1896 – 15 August 1961) was a British

wood-engraver 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 ...

. She studied wood-engraving at the London County Council School of Photo-engraving and Lithography in Bolt Court, London, where her teacher was

R. John Beedham Ralph John Beedham (1879–1975) was a British wood-engraver. He occupies a unique position in the history of twentieth-century wood-engraving because, being a formschneider, he was probably the last person in Britain to serve an apprenticeshi ...

, and exhibited with the

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 ...

.Joanna Selborne, 'The Society of Wood Engravers: the early years' in ''Craft History 1'' (1988), published by Combined Arts.

Biography

Alleyne was born in

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

in 1896, the daughter and only child of Bouverie Colebrooke Alleyne, part of a wealthy family originally from

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

, and Ada Clements. She studied at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a Member institutions of the University of London, constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The G ...

and the

Royal Academy Schools The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

. She appears not to have married.

Wood engravings and other artistic output

Alleyne exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers in 1933, 1936 and 1938. Her wood engravings were reproduced in the

London Mercury ''The London Mercury'' was the name of several periodicals published in London from the 17th to the 20th centuries. The earliest was a newspaper that appeared during the Exclusion Bill crisis; it lasted only 56 issues (1682). (Earlier periodical ...

; the September 1933 issue reproduced ''Night'', and the July 1934 issue ''Flower Study''. The 4th edition of Beedham's ''Wood Engraving'' (1935) reproduces ''Autumn Rain''. In 1926 the Saint Loup Press, San Remo, published an edition of 100 copies of ''Nursery Rhymes'', written and illustrated by Alleyne with hand coloured wood engravings. In the 1930s she wrote, illustrated and printed ''The Angry Cheese and Other Queer Fancies''; this was a very

Private Press Private press publishing, with respect to books, is an endeavor performed by craft-based expert or aspiring artisans, either amateur or professional, who, among other things, print and build books, typically by hand, with emphasis on Book design ...

production with some 18 wood engravings, some hand coloured. She also presented to her friend Elizabeth Rivers a hand printed illustrated poem entitled ''Ethne''. She produced a colour dust jacket for ''

The Way the World is Going ''The Way the World Is Going'' is a 1928 nonfiction book written by British author H. G. Wells. The book is a compilation of 26 articles and a lecture published in the United Kingdom and the United States throughout 1927. The topics range fr ...

'' (1928) by

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

, colour illustrations for Ivor Macleod's ''The Old Views and the New Vision'' (1929) and illustrations for ''The Singing Farmer: a translation of Vergil's "Georgics"'' (1947). She also produced colour

lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

and

oil paintings Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or copper for several centuries. ...

.Reproductions of two oil paintings by Alleyne
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Legacy

Mabel Alleyne is a minor figure in the wood engraving revival at the beginning of the twentieth century. She is almost invisible in the literature, and is recorded in the records of the Society of Wood Engravers, and in the credits in the London Mercury, as M. Alleyne rather than Mabel Alleyne.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alleyne, Mabel 1896 births 1961 deaths Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of the London College of Printing Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools Artists from Southampton British illustrators English wood engravers 20th-century British engravers