Mabel Allington Royds

Who was Mabel Allington Royds?

Mabel Royds was an English artist best known for her woodcuts.

She grew up in Liverpool and studied art at the Slade School in London. She then went to Canada where she taught at the Havergal College in Toronto. On returning to Britain she taught at the Edinburgh College of Art, then under the directorship of Frank Morley Fletcher, under whose influence she took up making colour woodcuts. In 1913 she married the etcher, Ernest Lumsden, who also taught at Edinburgh, and together they travelled through Europe, the Middle East and India.

Unable to afford traditional pear wood boards from which woodcuts were commonly made, she purchased breadboards from Woolworths on which to create her works.

Her best well known works include the Knife Grinders, Housetops, and the Boat Builders, all scenes of India created in around 1920-1930. Her woodcuts of flowers, dating from around 1930 to 1933, including Cineraria, Honeysuckle and Columbine, are also well known.