Chipmunk (illustration for "The Road of a Naturalist")

Paul Hambleton Landacre

Paul Landacre illustrated naturalist Donald Culross Peattie's book 'Flowering Earth' in 1939 and formed a friendship with Peattie that resulted in Landacre's illustrating at least five of the author's books.

They worked together again in 1941 to illustrate Peattie's 'The Road of a Naturalist', published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1941 and Robert Hale / Readers Union, London in 1946. These woodengravings were never editioned outside of the books. According to Landacre cataloguer Jake Wien this impression is the only known signed example of this woodengraving.

Kirkus Reviews magazine wrote about 'The Road of a Naturalist': "A fascinating autobiography of the famous naturalist, done as only he could have done it. He tells his story in the form of flashbacks to the years past, and at the same time, there are interludes of superb impressionist writing dealing with a motor trip through the Southwest, and on up through Utah to the Northwest and down the Coast. There is no sense of conventional reminiscences; there is almost nothing of people he has known; rather is it an adventure in living, in science, in thought."

The provenance of this impression is through inheritance of an old San Francisco family who were close friends and supporters of the artist.