Clare Leighton, Landing from the series Lumber Camp, wood engraving, edition 100, 1931. Signed, titled, and numbered 75/100 in pencil.
A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white wove paper, with full margins (1 7/16 to 2 5/8 inches), in excellent condition. An impression from the American edition of 100. An edition of 30 was printed in England.
Image size 8 1/4 x 12 3/8 inches (210 x 314 mm); sheet size 11 1/2 x 17 1 /2 inches (292 x 445 mm).
While in the United States on a lecture tour in 1930–31, Clare Leighton visited a Canadian International Paper Company lumber camp in the Laurentian Mountains, where she made on-site sketches that became the basis for her Lumber Camp series of wood engravings. The six scenes that make up this series depict the sequential stages of the timber harvest—from felling and limbing to loading and final handling of logs for transport. In Landing, massive piles of logs lie stacked on the ice, while workers bend to prod and roll them toward the spring melt. Their bodies and tools are rendered with economy of line and stark contrasts of black and white, conveying the physical intensity of the demanding labor and the expansive, snow-covered landscape. Leighton’s structured composition, rhythmically conceived as a dynamic, complex interplay of intersecting diagonals, echoes the lumbermen’s repetitive movements while inviting the viewer to engage with the scene’s narrative.
Works from Clare Leighton’s Lumber Camp series, including Landing, have been featured in major institutional exhibitions, notably Quiet Spirit, Skillful Hand: The Graphic Work of Clare Leighton, organized by the Mint Museum of Art and subsequently presented at venues including the Cameron Art Museum and the Georgia Museum of Art, as well as in multiple exhibitions organized by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Blanton Museum of Art, Currier Museum of Art Collections, Library of Congress (Pennell Fund), Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Academy of Design, Terra Foundation for American Art, Yale Center for British Art.
