Around the Campfire

This atmospheric etching depicts a family of three Travellers and their dog seated around a campfire. Behind is the outline of another caravan, and a few stars are dotted in the dark sky above. The caravan belongs to the Buckland family, who travelled every year to Hampstead Heath for the summer fairs. It is here that they met and befriended the artist. The ornately decorated caravan was made to mark the marriage of Leonard and Ivy Buckland. Jackson shows her skill as an engraver, depicting the intricate carvings of the caravan, with particular attention paid to the side panels of prancing ponies in front of foliage and berries.

Muriel Jackson

Muriel Blomfield Jackson was an English painter and wood engraver. Born in London in 1901, she was the daughter of acclaimed theatre architect Arthur Blomfield Jackson, who contributed to the design of iconic venues such as the Savoy Theatre and His Majesty’s Theatre. Her sister Susannah worked at the Old Vic Theatre as a costumier. Jackson was educated at Hampstead Day School and later studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London between 1917 and 1922. It was here that she was learned the techniques of wood-engraving from the artist Noel Rooke and how to use tempera for painting from F. Ernest Jackson. In 1928, Jackson married Francis Courtenay Mason, a surgeon on Harley Street, with the couple later having two children- a son and a daughter. Though Muriel took her husband’s name upon marriage, she continued to work under her maiden name.

Jackson frequently exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers from 1923 until 1940, and was elected as an associate of the society in 1925. In the same year, Jackson was a finalist for the British Prix de Rome scholarship competition. Throughout her career, she completed a number of public commissions for murals, most notably for St Peter’s Church at Limestone House in East London. She also exhibited at the New English Art Club, as well as the Royal Academy in London between 1927 and 1966. As was the case with many women artists in the 1920s, Jackson worked with transport companies and designed the ‘Happy Days at the Zoo’ travel poster for London County Council Tramways. In 1931, Jackson received the Logan Medal of the Arts at the International Exhibition of Lithography and Wood Engraving in Chicago for her print Wagon on the Heath. As a result, a large body of her work is represented in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. She travelled widely, returning to Italy where she was evacuated as a child, as well as visiting parts of Russia and Central Asia.

From 1920, Jackson specialised in recording traveller caravans on Hampstead Heath near her home in Well Walk. It was at the Heath Fairs that she met and befriended Leonard and Ivy Buckland, a travelling show couple of Romani decent. The Bucklands had commissioned an ornate caravan from Dunton and Sons on the occasion of their marriage and this caravan features in several of Jackson’s works. In 1938, after the Bucklands had retired from travelling, they sold the caravan to Jackson, who kept it in the family garden until she presented it to London County Council in 1948. Today, the Buckland caravan can be seen on display in the Kenwood Coach House at Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath.