Joan Hassall

Joan Hassall (3 March 1906 – 6 March 1988) was a wood engraver and book illustrator. Her subject matter ranged from natural history through poetry to illustrations for English literary classics. In 1972 she was elected the first lady Master of the Art Workers Guild and in 1987 was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire).

Born at 88 Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill, London, Joan Hassall was the daughter of the artist John Hassall, famous for his poster "Skegness is so bracing", and his second wife, Constance Brooke Webb.

Her letters show how close she was to her younger brother, Christopher Hassall, and his early death affected her greatly. She addressed him as 'Topher' in her letters to him, until his wife, Eve, objected, whereupon she switched to 'Bruth'. Her portrait of Christopher is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

She attended Parsons Mead School and then trained as a teacher at the Froebel Institute. Her experiences at a rough East London secondary school convinced her that she did not want to be a teacher. She worked as her father's secretary for two years and then attended the Royal Academy Schools from 1928 to 1933.

In 1931, to help out a friend because numbers for the class were dropping, she began evening classes in wood engraving at the London Central School of Photo-engraving and Lithography in Fleet Street, where her teacher was R. John Beedham. The discovery of wood engraving had a profound influence on the rest of her life.

She canvassed the London publishers for commissions for wood engravings, without success, until Heinemann commissioned her in 1936 to engrave the title page of her brother Christopher’s book of poems, Devil’s Dyke. She later discovered that her £5 fee had been deducted from her brother's royalties. She went on to illustrate a number of her brother's books, but the most important outcome for her was the commission to illustrate Francis Brett Young's Portrait of a Village (1937). She spent a great deal of time travelling around the area of Evesham and Pershore to make preliminary drawings for her wood engravings and produced a book that is generally considered to be one of her best.

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