Mary Newill

Mary Newill studied at the Birmingham School of Art, and became an illustrator, stained glass designer and embroiderer, exhibiting most notably at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. In due course she also became a teacher at the Birmingham School (mainly of embroidery). Her work often shows the influence of Burne-Jones. For her illustrations, she worked either in wash, or in a technique designed to simulate woodcuts. Walter Crane admired particularly her ornamental rendering of landscape, a subject important to him, and discussed in his writings on the decorative use of ornament. Newill's pictorial embroideries are akin to book illustrations also in their composition and style.