Sheep Shearing 1932

Clare Leighton made this print of 'Sheep Shearing' with a block of wood, some sharp tools and ink. Just look at the way Leighton captures the back-breaking labor of farmers shearing sheep in a field, with dense cross-hatching. I wonder, was she ever in that field herself? The way she's layered these strokes, some light, some dense, creates this amazing depth and texture. It must have been quite meditative, to carve this into wood. It reminds me a bit of Kathe Kollwitz, who was wrestling with her own tools and her own demons. Both artists were concerned with capturing the everyday struggles of working people and depicting rural life. Each mark looks like a deliberate choice, a testament to the artist's careful, methodical process. The light, the density, that's the magic of printmaking—and the magic of Leighton. It shows me how art can be in conversation across time, how one artist’s gestures can spark another’s.