Betty 1927, Robert Harling, when commissioned to write a book about Eric Ravilious’s wood engravings, ‘ came across work by Tirzah and began to realise how talented she was in her own right. Her wood engravings were technically assured, clearly and cleanly incised, with her chosen subjects, like herself, unpredictable, delightful, mildly dotty’ (The Wood Engravings of Tirzah Ravilious 1987).

It was a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, with long walks during the intermittent rain and showers and some hard work on one of the October Books – Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood. Each chapter will be preceded by a photograph of Tirzah or one of her wood engravings, or a wood engraving by Eric Ravilious (whom she married in 1930). This is The Grandmother 1929. It’s rather how some of us feel after a busy weekend.

Rather pleasingly, if you search ‘My son John Leonard Fuller’ on Google  two different sources come up for the painting (Art UK as the PCF/BBC site is now called and The Atheneum, where someone has kindly uploaded many of Fuller’s paintings); and then a Persephone Book – On the Other Side. Of course Google is clever enough to know that this particular computer is interested in Persephone Books, but still it’s gratifying. The painting is indeed so germane to the book. My Son John 1940 is at The Tank Museum in Dorset. Does anyone know if John Fuller survived the war?

Leonard Fuller’s wife Marjorie Mostyn (1893-1979) was also a painter (a rather good picture by her is for sale here). This painting by Leonard is called Marjorie Mostyn: The Artist’s Wife; he died in 1973 so this portrait is perhaps 1960s.

Marjorie Knitting by Leonard Fuller is undated, it’s at the Penlee Art Gallery (though may not always be on display) and is one of the rare but memorable paintings of women knitting that fit so well on blogs like Yarnstorm Press (it can also  be found on Pinterest with other knitting pictures). Who would not want to wear that beautiful blue top?!

Lanhams Framing Workshop, St Ives 1962 by Leonard Fuller is one of those paintings we love so much at Persephone books – pictures of people hard at work, doing something which completely absorbs them, in surroundings that we would all feel comfortable in.

Leonard Fuller (1891-1973) was a St Ives painter, there was an exhibition at Penlee House a couple of years ago but he is still little known outside Cornwall. ‘His early artistic promise was interrupted by the First World War; deeply affected by his war experience, Fuller went on to dedicate his life to teaching and painting. In 1938, he founded the internationally renowned St Ives School of Painting with his wife and fellow artist Marjorie Mostyn’ (Penlee). This is Autumn Sunshine, it is undated but pre-1933.