EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 21 © 2017 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

82 Lucy Kemp-Welch David Ashford brings to life the story of one of the foremost illustrators of equestrian adventure. Famed for her illustrations to Anna Sewell’s ‘Black Beauty’ her work still resonates more than a century later. Photograph by kind permission of David Messum Fine Art Ltd A while ago I visited a small museum in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where I was pleasantly surprised to find there was a gallery dedicated to the work of Lucy Kemp- Welch. I knew the name and that she was the renowned illustrator of Anna Sewell’s ‘Black Beauty’ and I was interested to discover what other work she had done. However, nothing prepared me for what I was about to see. As I entered the gallery I remember standing completely still, quite awestruck by what was before me. All four walls were covered with horse paintings, most of a monumental size (one canvas as large as 12ft by 8ft), and all as vigorous and as powerful as any I had seen. These animals were not well-groomed, fashionable thoroughbreds, as painted by artists such as Sir Arthur Munnings, but working horses, toiling on the land or in military service or, as in one picture, pulling a lifeboat into a raging sea. Without a doubt, these paintings were the work of someone who not only understood the anatomy of horses but had an intense ABOVE: Watercolour cover and illustration from ‘Black Beauty’, which was published in 1915. FACING PAGE TOP: A Quiet Moment, painted in 1933. FACING PAGE BOTTOM: Ploughman and Two Horses in an Open Landscape. Photograph by kind permission of David Messum Fine Art Ltd