Centre for the History of the Book, Book History Seminar
19th February 2016, 1-2pm, 50 George Square Project Room
Professor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson University
Seminar: The Invisible Hands of Clemence Housman, Victorian Wood Engraver
The least well known of a talented family that included poet A.E. Housman and author/illustrator Laurence Housman, Clemence Housman (1861-1955) was one of the most gifted of late-Victorian wood engravers. James Guthrie, whose designs for the Pear Tree Press she engraved, observed she was as unparalleled in her wood-engraving technique as she was in her complete “self-effacement.” This seminar aims to counter that self-effacement by exploring the contributions to, and conditions of, women engravers in Victorian print media, and by making visible Clemence Housman’s claim that the “masterly translation of beautiful works into black and white is worthy employment of the talent or genius of an artist.”
Author Bio
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra is Professor of English and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. A specialist in Victorian illustration and publishing history, she has published books, chapters, and numerous articles on these subjects, including The Artist as Critic: Bitextuality in Fin-de-Siècle Illustrated Books (1995), Christina Rossetti and Illustration: A Publishing History (2003), and Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture 1855-1875 (2011). She is co-editor of the peer-reviewed scholarly site, The Yellow Nineties Online (www.1890s.ca).