Elyse Ashe Lord
(1900 - 1971 Bexley, Kent)

Deer in Cherry Blossom, c.1930s

painted ceramic tile

pair 30 x 15 cm.

individual 15 x 15 cm.

Provenance

from the estate of Elyse Ashe Lord

Elyse Ashe Lord trained at Heatherley’s School of Art in Chelsea and began exhibiting publicly in 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War. She first showed her watercolours and drawings at London’s Brook Street Gallery, and by 1922 had been elected a full member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. In 1923, The Fine Art Society began issuing her work as colour prints, and her popularity quickly grew. Five years later, the Lefevre Gallery devoted a substantial exhibition to her work, bringing together 33 watercolours on silk and 54 prints.

Lord’s distinctive style grew from a fascinating collision of Oriental art and culture, Art Deco and the fashions of the early 1920s. Although she never travelled to the East, she drew inspiration from Oriental paintings, tapestries, prints and manuscripts encountered in museums and private collections, transforming these sources into her own visual narratives.

Her prints are particularly distinctive for their unusual, multi-layered technique, combining etching, drypoint, aquatint and woodcut. The result is a jewel-like, highly decorative surface that captures both the glamour of the Jazz Age and Lord’s own vision.