Description
Ernest Clegg was a cartographer, painter, designer and illustrator. Born in England, he studied at the Birmingham School of Art there. In World War I he served as a captain in Bedfordshire Regiment of the British Army. Clegg was wounded during the Battle of Somme in 1916, but recovered and was able to witness the surrender of the German Navy in 1918. After the war, he returned to his Manhattan home, where he had earlier immigrated, and resumed his art career. During World War I he had witnessed firsthand the Battle of Jutland, which he commemorated in a painting about 20 years later, as reported in a 1937 article in Time. Clegg also drew upon his World War I experience to illustrate a limited edition publication of John McCrae’s famous poem In Flanders Field (1921), reissued in an expanded edition by Nabu Press in 2010.
Clegg is probably best known for his pictorial maps that combined precise illustrations with historical facts and accuracy. His most renowned is A Map of Lindbergh’s Flights (1928), published as a wall map on rollers or folding. His other pictorial maps include the Ticonderoga Colonial battlefields, Washington, D.C. and environs (for the bicentenary of George Washington), a chart of the site for the America’s Cup Yacht Races of 1934, and a series of county maps of Great Britain published by The Countryman (1945-47).
Condition: Generally fine overall with little toning or wear. Slight warping to paper, central horizontal, will mostly flatten when matted and framed.
References:
“Art: Jutland on Canvas.” Originally in Time, February 8, 1937. Online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,883586,00.html (19 November 2010).
Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who in American Art. Madison, Connecticut: Sound View Press, 1985. p. 118.
