Muriel Jackson

Muriel Blomfield Jackson (9 March 1901 to 1978) was a wood engraver who was active at the beginning of the twentieth century. She was a pupil of Noel Rooke at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and exhibited regularly with the Society of Wood Engravers.^[1]

Biography

Muriel Jackson was born in London, the daughter of architect Arthur Blomfield Jackson, and was educated at Ruskin House School, Hampstead. She studied at the Central School from 1917 to 1922 under Noel Rooke for wood engraving and F. Ernest Jackson for tempera painting. From 1920 she specialised in recording gypsy caravans on Hampstead Heath, and in 1922 she designed a poster Happy days at the zoo for London County Council Tramways.^[2] She was a finalist in the British Prix de Rome in 1925 and in 1931 received the Logan Medal of the Arts at the International Exhibition of Lithography and Wood Engraving, Art Institute of Chicago, for her print Wagon on the Heath.

Her wood engravings

Jackson exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers from 1923 to 1940, when the society ceased arranging exhibitions until it was revived by Margaret Pilkington in 1949. She was elected an associate of the society in 1925. She was never commissioned to illustrate any books, but her work was reproduced sporadically in Drawing and Design and the Studio. Her wood engraving Motor bike was reproduced in the August 1924 number of Drawing and Design, and The Fencers in the March 1930 number of the Studio, which also reproduced Balaam's Ass in the June 1951 number. Malcolm C. Salaman reproduces Harvesters, Italy in his 1930 review published by the Studio^[3] and grants her the terse comment: '"There is a splendid pictorial rhythm in Miss Muriel Jackson's "Harvesters, Italy"."

Her work is represented in the collection of the Central School.^[4]

An overview of Jackson's work

Muriel Jackson is a minor figure in the wood engraving revival at the beginning of the twentieth century, notable more for her longevity as a wood engraver than the quality of her work.

References