Mabel Lucie ATTWELL

Mabel Lucie ATTWELL
Mrs H C Earnshaw
1879
1964

The artist moved to Fowey in 1945 and died in Cornwall in 1964.

She was born in London and studied art at the Regent Street Art School and at Heatherley's.  She married a fellow book illustrator and watercolourist, Harold Earnshaw, in 1908 (who pre-deceased her by many years, c late 1920s).  In WWI her husband lost an arm, and therefore the support for him and their three children fell upon her alone. The challenge was taken up in a most courageous fashion, and her name, like Beatrix Potter and Kate Greenaway, became synonymous with a certain view of childhood - in her case quite sentimental.  Her drawings became the subject of greetings cards (R Tuck), children's books (some of which she also authored textually), and an Annual with stories and illustrations. She also illustrated works by the classic children's writers: Hans Anderson, Brothers Grimm, J M Barrie and Lewis Carroll.

 

media

Author, book illustrator

works and access

Works include: illustrated books; postcards and greetings cards 1920s & 30s

exhibitions

SWA 1924

memberships

Society of Women Artists

misc further info

 

references

Carpenter & Prichard The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature pp 34-5 (Illus)

Houfe The Dictionary of 19th Century British Book Illustrators (p 51)