Seal (illustration for "The Road of a Naturalist")

Paul Hambleton Landacre

Paul Landacre illustrated naturalist Donald Culross Peattie's book 'Flowering Earth' in 1939 and formed a friendship with Peattie that resulted in Landacre's illustrating at least five of the author's books.

They worked together again in 1941 to illustrate Peattie's 'The Road of a Naturalist', published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1941 and Robert Hale / Readers Union, London in 1946. These woodengravings were never editioned outside of the books. According to Landacre cataloguer Jake Wien this impression is the only known signed example of this woodengraving.

Kirkus Reviews magazine wrote about 'The Road of a Naturalist': "A fascinating autobiography of the famous naturalist, done as only he could have done it. He tells his story in the form of flashbacks to the years past, and at the same time, there are interludes of superb impressionist writing dealing with a motor trip through the Southwest, and on up through Utah to the Northwest and down the Coast. There is no sense of conventional reminiscences; there is almost nothing of people he has known; rather is it an adventure in living, in science, in thought."

The provenance of this impression is through inheritance of an old San Francisco family who were close friends and supporters of the artist.

In writing a recommendation for Landacre for a Guggenheim Foundation grant, Merle Armitage declared: "It is my considered opinion that he is the greatest technician of his type who is working today. He is a complete master of the intricacies of wood-engraving, and his work from a technical side is impeccable."

Paul Hambleton Landacre was born in July 1893 in Columbus, Ohio and attended Ohio State University until he was suddenly crippled by a debilitating illness. In 1916, he moved to Chula Vista, California to convalesce and he found solace in drawing the landscape and purchased his first linoleum blocks. He moved to Los Angeles in 1922 to attend classes at the Otis Art Institute. Woodengraving was not part of the curriculum so he was self-taught. He worked as a commercial illustrator, married Margaret McCreery in 1925, and devoted himself to woodengraving in 1926.

He taught at the University of Southern California, the Otis Art Institute and the Kahn Institute and was a member of and exhibited with the California Society of Etchers, the California Print Makers Society, the American Society of Wood Engravers, and the American Society of Etchers. Landacre became the pre-eminent American woodengraver, an honor bestowed by Rockwell Kent and Carl Zigrosser. His mastery of the medium led to his election to the National Academy of Design in 1946. Landacre illustrated award winning books of poems and his first solo book, California Hills and other Woodengravings of 1931 won Fifty Books of the Year.