Lucy Kemp-Welch, 1869-1958 : The Spirit of the Horse Book

Lucy Kemp-Welch was the artist chosen by J. M. Dent in 1915 to illustrate Black Beauty and her pictures for that edition have remained a constant favourite. At the time Lucy Kemp-Welch was a renowned horse painter, whose huge canvases had taken the art world by storm at the turn of the century. More than any other British painter, she captured the unbroken spirit of the horse, having galloped with them in the wild and laboured alongside them in the fields. Using Black Beauty as the theme running through her book, and drawing on personal diaries and letters, Laura Wortley explores the origins of Lucy's extraordinary intuition and records both her triumphs and setbacks as she soared to fame in the worlds of art and horses then dominated by men. During the Boer War and the First World War Lucy became fascinated by cavalry horses, which she painted both on the battlefield and at exercise, earning her the friendship of Robert Baden-Powell who provided her with 'Black Prince', the model for Black Beauty. In later life she travelled with Sanger's circus, producing paintings full of life and energy both behind the scenes and in the ring. This inspiring life story of Lucy Kemp-Welch is lavishly illustrated with 139 colour illustrations of her work and will provide immense pleasure to all lovers of art and of horses.