POOLE, Monica (1921-2003)

Monica Poole spent the post-war years from 1945 to 1949 at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. Here she met Noel Rooke, a noted wood-engraver. It was John Farleigh’s course on illustrating, though, that revealed and nurtured her talent for wood- engraving. In 1940 she had first seen and been inspired by Farleigh’s illustrations for D.H. Lawrence’s The Man Who Died (1935), which led to the idea of studying under him. Her work may be seen in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum in London, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, the Boston Public Library and in many other collections. Her close friend and fellow wood-engraver, George Mackley, published a book on her engravings in 1994.