[Original Wood-Engraving:] 'Hirundines of Selborne'.

Bookseller Notes

Van Niekerk studied at the Central School of Arts & Crafts under Gertrude Hermes, who was a profound influence, and at the Slade, under the tutelage of Anthony Gross and Lynton Lamb, among others, and in her turn, taught wood engraving at the RA schools. Her work is featured in all the major UK collections, and she illustrated widely, particularly for The Folio Society. This engraving, for the Print Collectors Club, 1993, to mark 200 years since the death of Oriel alumnus Gilbert White, is a particularly striking engraving, the movement of the swallows traced through the sky in interweaving curves, the dense mark-making of the rounded tree clumps in contrast to the freer, doodle-like white delineation of the foreground foliage.