Hilary Stebbing

Hilary Stebbing (1915-1996) was an artist, illustrator and children's author particularly associated with Puffin Books, and active in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Hilary Stebbing
Born1915
Henfield
Died1996
Winchelsea
NationalityBritish
Alma materCentral School of Art and Design
SpouseJohn ‘Jack’ Baker

Biography

She was a student at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in the late 1930s, where she was a contemporary of Monica Walker[1] and the stained-glass artist, conservator and author John ‘Jack’ Baker, whom she married in 1946.[2]

Her woodblock print 'Heaven, Hell and Purgatory' was included in the annual Exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1939. It was shown again in the Society's Centenary Exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 2020 and illustrated in the catalogue.[3] It is also reproduced in Simon Lawrence’s history of the Society, Spitsticks and Multiples (Fleece Press 2022).[4]

She exhibited at Court Lodge Gallery, Horton Kirby, Dartford, Derbyshire County Council Museum Service and Rye Society of Artists.[1]

Works
  • Pantomime Stories, Puffin, 1943[5]
  • Maggie the Streamlined Taxi, The Transatlantic Arts Company Limited, 1943
  • The Silly Rabbits. A tale, (Picture Book no. 19), Bantam, 1944
  • The Animals Went in Two by Two, (Picture Book no. 20), Bantam, 1944
  • Monty's New House, The Transatlantic Arts Company Limited, 1944
  • Extinct Animals, Puffin, 1946
  • Freddy and Ernest, the Dragons of Wellbottom Poggs, Puffin, 1946
  • Living Animals, Cassell & Co. Ltd, 1954
  • The Ten Pussy-Cats, Listen with Mother, BBC Light Programme, 1962[1]

Legacy

The University of the Arts London (the successor to the Central School of Arts and Crafts) has six of Stebbing's works in its collection.[1]

The two Bantam books, The Silly Rabbits and The Animals Went in Two by Two, were republished in a limited edition by Design for Today.[6]

Two limited edition giclee prints were produced in 2022 to support development of the new House of Illustration at New River Head in Islington, London.[7]

In October 2022, Stebbing was included alongside Kathleen Hale, Eric Ravilious, Edward Ardizzone, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse in the exhibition 'Picture Books For All: the fine printing of W. S. Cowell Ltd.' at The Hold heritage centre in Ipswich.[8][9]

References
  1. "Hilary Stebbing". Makers A-Z: individuals and organisations. University of the Arts London. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  2. "News: John 'Jack' Baker". Vidimus: The Only Online Magazine Devoted to Medieval Stained Glass (15). February 2008. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  3. Anne Desmet, Box of Delights: Wood Engravings from the Ashmolean Collection, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, 2020, p.24, fig 21
  4. Vol. 2, p.542
  5. Phil Baines, Puffin by Design: 70 Years of Imagination 1940-2010, Allen Lane, 2010, p.28-29
  6. "Hilary Stebbing and her Bantam Picture Books. A limited edition of 850 numbered copies". Design for Today. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  7. Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration [@@qbcentre] (21 June 2022). "Our friends at the Hilary Stebbing Archive have created two new limited edition prints from their collection!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  8. "Picture Books For All: the fine printing of W.S. Cowell Ltd". Suffolk Archives Foundation. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  9. Nigel Ball (19 June 2022). "Picture books for all: the journey of an exhibition". Retrieved 2 November 2022.

Further reading
  • Joe Pearson, Drawn Direct to the Plate: Noel Carrington and the Puffin Picture Books, Penguin Collectors Society, 2010
  • Ruth Artmonsky, Do You Want It Good Or Do You Want It Tuesday? The halcyon days of W.S. Cowell Ltd. Printers, Artmonsky Arts, 2012
  • Joe Pearson, article in Illustration Magazine Autumn 2017. (the issue cover is a detail from a study Stebbing did for the Children’s Education posters)
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