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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Tuesday, March 07, 2017

a wolfhound's horizon

© Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 
Phyllis Gardner (British, 1890-1939) was the daughter of an archaeologist, the secret lover of the poet Rupert Brooke, an illustrator and printmaker trained at the Slade School of Art, and from 1920 on a well-regarded breeder of Irish wolfhounds.  Her "Head of a Dog," above, signed in the Greek version of her name, dates roughly from 1913-26 and shows Gardner's harmonious yet muscular approach to line.  Some of that is what you get with woodcuts, as it lends itself to strong images, but I see an intense grace (and independence) here.  You should be able to get a peek at more of her work here in this search I made at the British Museum.
Here's a footnote.  Phyllis Gardner was buried in an unmarked grave; the Rupert Brooke Society decided to do something about that.  Page on that - with photos of Phyllis and her wolfhounds - here.

2 comments:

L. T. May said...

For more about Ms. Gardner and her Irish Wolfhounds, please see:

http://www.irishwolfhoundarchives.ie/phyllisanddelphisgardner.htm

curator said...

Dear L.T. - Thank you greatly for the excellent link! There is so much to look at there. Thank you also for your visit!