Bernard Sleigh
Bernard Sleigh (1872 – 7 December 1954) was an English mural painter, stained-glass artist, illustrator and wood engraver, best known for "An Ancient Mappe of Fairyland, Newly Discovered and Set Forth", which depicts numerous characters from legends and fairytales. There is a copy of "The Ancient Mappe" in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists between 1923 and 1928. As a young man, Sleigh was greatly inspired by the work of George MacDonald and William Morris. Education and work. Born in Birmingham, Sleigh was apprenticed to a  wood engraver at the age of 14 and attended the Birmingham School of Art. He was a student of Arthur Gaskin (1862–1928), who had worked with Edward Burne-Jones. While at the school, he came under the influence of the Birmingham Group. Being especially skilled in wood engraving, he soon caught the public eye through his engravings for books. He joined the Society of Mural Decorators and Painters in Tempera. His advertising after 1918 says he could do wall paintings, memorial windows and inscriptions in metal. At exhibitions of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, he offered to create furniture  inlays. In 1897 he became a member of the Bromsgrove Guild, receiving commissions for decorating churches such as Wallasey Memorial Unitarian Church in Cheshire, and designing stained-glass windows. After sending Henry Payne to Chelsea to study stained-glass technique, the Birmingham School of Art added stained-glass work to their curriculum in 1900. Bernard Sleigh was among the first to enrol for the course. Sleigh wrote a series of stories about fairies, "The Gates of Horn", published in 1927. Although Sleigh aimed the book at an adult audience, his publishers, J. M. Dent, instead marketed the book for children , and it was a commercial failure. Anderson describes the stories in "The Gates of Horn" as "engaging and well-told". Marriage and retirement. In 1900 he married Stella D. Phillp, producing a son, Brocas Linwood, in 1902 and in 1906 a daughter, Barbara Grace de Riemer, who became a children's writer. The marriage was dissolved in about 1914. Sleigh retired to Chipping Campden in 1937, like his mentor Arthur Gaskin, moving into Old Forge Cottage in Cider Mill Lane. His imagery by then had turned from romantic medievalism to a world peopled by fairies and elves. He died on  7 December 1954, leaving an estate valued at £2,187, and probate was granted to Miss Ivy Ann Ellis. Ellis had been "his regular collaborator and constant companion right up until the time of death".