Eileen Soper

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Eileen Alice Soper (born March 26, 1905 in Enfield , † March 18, 1990 in Hertford ) was a British etcher and illustrator of children's and animal books. She made a variety of etchings of children playing as well as illustrations for other authors such as B. for Enid Blyton and Elizabeth Gould , but also wrote and illustrated his own children's books. Some of her children's and animal drawings were used in the 1930s for porcelain painting for the China series by Paragon China . In her later life she focused more on writing and illustrating animal books. She co-founded the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) and became a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers (RMS) in 1972 .

Early years

Eileen Soper was born in Enfield in 1905 and moved to Harmer Green, Welwyn in Hertfordshire in 1908 . The property, which she later called Wildings , was built by her father, the artist George Soper . Eileen and her older sister Eva Soper , also an artist, inherited the house in 1942 after the death of their father and spent the rest of their lives there. Eileen attended the Hitchin Girls' School and received artistic training mainly from her father.

Act

After exhibiting three prints at the California Society of Printmakers , she showed her artistic talent with two of her etchings at the Royal Academy of Arts in London at the age of 15 . This was followed by around 180 etchings on the subject of "children playing" in the 1930s. Queen Mary bought two of her etchings, including Flying Swings in 1924 . Her work was popular and shown with pleasure in Great Britain and the United States .

Today Eileen Soper is best known for her collaboration with the children's book author Enid Blyton, for whom she illustrated all volumes of her series Five Friends (1942–1963) over a period of more than twenty years . Commenting on Soper, Enid Blyton told Noel Evans in 1949:

“I don't need to see roughs of any of her sketches. She and I have worked together so long now and I have always found her accurate and most dependable - in fact excellent in every way ... "

“I don't need to see drafts of any of your drawings. You and I have worked together for so long now, and I have always found her to be accurate and highly reliable - excellent in every way, in fact ... "

- Enid Blyton, 1949

In the 1940s, Soper also published her own children's books and a volume of poetry , and in the 1950s she made a variety of illustrations of wild animals around her home in Welwyn.

Late years

Both Eileen and Eva Soper lived together in Wildings until old age, until both fell ill almost simultaneously and died in 1990.

Works

Publications

Children's books

  • Happy rabbit . Macmillan, London 1947.
  • Dormouse awake . Macmillan, London 1948.
  • Sail away shrew . Macmillan, London 1949.

Animal books

  • When badgers wake . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1955.
  • Wild encounters . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1957.
  • Wanderers of the field . Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1959.
  • Wild favors . Hutchinson, London 1963.
  • Muntjac. A study of these small elusive Asian deer which colonized an English garden . Longmans & Green, London 1969.

poetry

  • Songs on the wind . London 1948.

Illustrations in works

  • Enid Blyton: Famous Five Series . (1942-63).
  • Bridget Mackenzie: Six in a Caravan . Newnes, London 1945.
  • Christine Chaundler: The golden years. Some verses for nurseries . Hale, London 1950.
  • Phil Drabble: No badgers in my wood . Joseph, London 1979, ISBN 0-7181-1853-7 .

literature

  • Duff Hart-Davis: Wildings. The secret garden of Eileen Soper . Witherby, London 1991, ISBN 0-85493-209-7 .
  • David Wootton: The catalog raisonne of Prints and Etchings of George and Eileen Soper . Ed .: Fiona Pearce et al. Beetles, London 1995, ISBN 1-871136-46-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Catherine Davies: Herts Memories , hertsmemories.org.uk, accessed July 13, 2017.
  2. ↑ Barbara Stoney: Enid Blyton. The History Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-752-46957-7 , p. 136 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
personal data
SURNAME Soper, Eileen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soper, Eileen Alice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English illustrator and author
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Enfield
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1990
Place of death Hertford , Hertfordshire