The Early Years
She canvassed the London publishers for commissions for wood engravings, without success, until Heinemann commissioned her in 1936 to engrave the title page of her brother Christopher’s book of poems, Devil’s Dyke. She later discovered that her £5 fee had been deducted from her brother's royalties. She went on to illustrate a number of her brother's books, but the most important outcome for her was the commission to illustrate Francis Brett Young's Portrait of a Village (1937). She spent a great deal of time travelling around the area of Evesham and Pershore to make preliminary drawings for her wood engravings and produced a book that is generally considered to be one of her best.
In 1940 Hassall produced an equally successful set of wood engravings to illustrate Cranford by Mrs Gaskell. She carried out a great deal of research into the costumes of the period, and was able to make preparatory drawings of a suitably slim friend wearing period costumes from the extensive collection of Dr Willett Cunnington, who lived nearby.
Read more about this topic: Joan Hassall
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“An early dew woos the half-opened flowers”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)
“What will our children remember of us, ten, fifteen years from now? The mobile we bought or didn’t buy? Or the tone in our voices, the look in our eyes, the enthusiasm for life—and for them—that we felt? They, and we, will remember the spirit of things, not the letter. Those memories will go so deep that no one could measure it, capture it, bronze it, or put it in a scrapbook.”
—Sonia Taitz (20th century)