Elsie Henderson
(Eastbourne, Sussex 1880 - 1967 Tunbridge Wells, Kent)

Shoots and Leaves, c.1947

watercolour, charcoal and ink on paper

image size: 21 x 28 cm
sheet size: 26.5 x 35 cm
(framed 36 x 44.5 cm.)
in a period frame

Provenance
Sally Hunter Fine Art

During the 1920s Elsie Henderson was considered to be one of the most versatile andaccomplished artists of her generation, famous particularly for her passionate portrayal of thejungle animals she sketched incessantly at London Zoo.However, landscape painting was herprivate passion and she drew inspiration in particular from the natural beauty of woodlandsnear her various homes over the course of her life.Having studied at the Slade from 1903, from 1908 Elsie continued her training in Paris,attending various progressive atéliers where she came into contact with the most influentialart teachers in Europe.After spending the First World War in Guernsey, her childhood home, in 1916 Hendersonenrolled at Chelsea Polytechnic to learn lithography underErnest Jackson. She immediatelyattracted attention with the series of animal lithographs she began then-outstanding in theirgrasp of form and design and Japanese use of space-and with the drawings on which thesewere based.Sheexhibited at the NewEnglish Art Club and Women's International Art Club,and was commissioned by London Transport to design a London Zoo Underground poster.She set up her own printing press, and became a member of the lithographers’SenefelderClub.Henderson experimented in the early 1920s with stone and cement sculpture, and developedan expertise in clay-modelling and bronze-casting. Encouraged by her close friendships withstrong, independent women like the painter Orovida Pissarro, she went on to hold soloexhibitions at the Leicester, Redfern and Storran galleries, and to exhibit with other well-known artists like Paul Nash.

In 1928 she returned to Guernsey, marrying the French consul, Baron de Coudenhove, and inher purpose-built studio produced linocuts as well as lithographs, and vibrant, Deco-style still-lifes and portraits of women in oils and pastels. With the Second World War and German occupation of the island she was however forced to abandon her art to grow food, and whenthe Baron died in 1946 she moved to Hadlow Down in Sussex.

There Elsie built another studio, working obsessively until her death. Her energy is particularly evident in the series of watercolours and oils she produced of the Sussex countryside during the 1950s, at a time when she was once again exhibiting, for example at the Leicester Galleriesin 1954. With their slashes of vivid colour, tendency towards abstraction and treatment oflight, these have a visionary quality, influenced by her fascination with theosophy.

Elsie Henderson's work isheld byTate, The Fitzwilliam and the British Museum among other museums worldwide.