Monthly Spotlight – September 2006
Lionel Edwards
Biography.
Born on November 9th 1878 in Clifton, Lionel Edwards was the youngest son of a doctor. It was his father who instilled in his son a love of the countryside and equestrianism.
His artistic talent was visible from an early age but it was thought more suitable for the young Edwards to enter into a military career than the impoverished lifestyle of artists. Fortunately for Edwards an aunt suggested that he study art at Frank Calderon’s studio for animal painting in London.
At the age of twenty Edwards was elected to the London Sketch Club, becoming their youngest member. He also established himself in his own studio in London where he kept a horse and would frequently hack out into the countryside to hunt. These outings gave him many opportunities to observe and sketch horses and riders, which he was able to do with great speed.
In 1902, he visited Exmoor and discovered an affinity with the area that would remain with him for life. Many of his books contain recognisable Exmoor landscapes. It was on this trip that he held his first one-man exhibition, which was hugely successful and the proceeds enabled him to hire good horses for further expeditions into the countryside.
On the outbreak of the First World War Edwards volunteered as a remount officer. His job was to purchase horses and mules for army services in cavalry or supply units and he made many sketches during this period. Throughout his life Edwards maintained that the military break in his career improved his drawing skill and it has been argued that his finest work dates from the inter war years. His output during this time was formidable, totalling eighty-two books. In 1927 Edwards was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and thereafter used the letters “R. I.” after his name.
His productivity waned as a result of the Second World War where the sixty-one year old Edwards was head of a mounted unit of the Horse Guard. In the fifties and sixties his amount produced per year reduced to one or two books a year and were mainly in the form of line drawings due to Edwards deteriorating eye-sight. However he was loyal to his passion of hunting and the countryside, continuing to ride to hounds until he was eighty. Even then he was often out braving all weathers sketching from a field corner.
On April 14th 1966 Lionel Edwards suffered a stroke and died peacefully that day.
Bibliography.
Many of Edwards’s first illustrations appeared in Country Life, a magazine that would continue to show his work between the 1900s and the 1960s.
St Mary’s Books is pleased to offer for sale over 30 books containing illustrations by or written by Lionel Edwards including a fine limited edition signed by Lionel Edwards of My Hunting Sketch Book, published in 1928. It contains fourteen colour sketches of various hunts and a frontispiece portrait of the hunt at Cottesmore, which is also signed by Lionel Edwards. We also have two very good first editions of Edwards’s Sketches in Stable and Kennel (1933) and a first edition of The Passing Seasons (1927).
Please click on the link below to view all of our current Lionel Edwards stock.
If you would like more information on any of our Lionel Edwards items, please do not hesitate to ask.
July Spotlight John Clare 2006
June Spotlight: H. Rider Haggard 2006
May Spotlight: Mrs Beeton 2006
April Spotlight: A. A. Milne 2006
March Spotlight: Denys Watkins-Pitchford: 'BB' 2006
February Spotlight: C. S. Lewis 2006
January Spotlight: Arthur Ransome 2006
Christmas Spotlight 2005
November Spotlight: Henry Williamson 2005
October Spotlight: Arthur Rackham 2005
September Spotlight: Cecil Aldin 2005
August Spotlight: Rupert the Bear 2005