Elyse Ashe Lord

1885-1971

Spring (Chinese Beauty)

colored etching, signed in pencil below the image to the right, Elyse Ashe Lord, and numbered at left, 71/75, ca. 1920-30s

8 5/8 by 9 in., 21.91 by 22.86 cm

Elyse Ashe Lord was born in Elise Muller 1885 (not 1895 or 1900 previously thought). Details regarding her early life are unclear, but it is likely when she married the Reverend Thomas Ashe Lord she opted to take his middle and last name as her own and change the year of her birth in an effort to obscure her German parentage. She attended Heatherleys School of Art in Chelsea, London at some point prior to the First World War. From 1915 to 1921, Lord primarily produced paintings, and apparently held her first exhibition of watercolors in 1919 (at an unknown venue), and in November 1921 she exhibited paintings at the Brook Street Gallery in London. The following year she became a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and her first color prints were exhibited at the Fine Arts Society on Bond Street in London in the Spring of 1923.

Initially, Lord self-published drypoint etchings colored by hand or aquatints. Later she developed a process using the drypoint plate as though it were a keyblock and then color was applied with woodblock printing. Lord worked with professional publishers but would supervise the printing of her plates. From 1928 to 1931, Lord's prints were published by Alex. Reid and Lefevre; from 1931 to 1933, they were published by Walter Bull and Sanders, Ltd., and thereafter by H.C. Dickins. She was remarkably prolific, it is estimated that she issued at least 350, perhaps 400 prints. In 1927, The Studio Magazine featured Lord in their first volume of the Masters of the Colour Print book series. She was a member of the Society of Graver-Printers in Colour, and she exhibited her prints and paintings in the U.K. at the Royal Academy, the Royal Cambrian Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Society of Artists (Birmingham), the Walker Gallery (Liverpool), the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Goupil Gallery, the Leferve Gallery, and the Redfern Gallery, among others. She won a silver medal at the Paris Salon, exhibited with the Chicago Society of Etchers and was represented in the United States by Arthur Ackermann & Sons on 57th Street in New York.

References:
Malcolm C. Salaman, Masters of the Colour Print: Vol. I, Elyse Lord, The Studio, 1927
Darrel C. Karl, Asian Art Deco #4A: The Musician Prints of Elyse Ashe Lord, Eastern Impressions, easternimp.blogspot.com, May 20, 2017 (biography excerpt)
(inv. no. 10-5207)

price: $650