Lucille Oille
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Lucille Oille (1912-1997)
Lucille Oille was a sculptor, wood engraver and book illustrator born in Toronto, Canada. She studied with Emanuel Hahn at the Ontario College of Art and then attended the Royal College of Art in London, England.
Her sculpture was exhibited at the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy in the 1930's and early 40's.
However, after her marriage to journalist Kenneth McNeill Wells, she devoted most of her time to the wood engraved illustration of his (and other's) books.
In the late 1940's Wells and Oille settled into an old ramshackle log cabin in rural Ontario and while he wrote of the often humorous exploits of transplanted city folk for the Toronto Telegram newspaper she began a series of wood engravings that were used in the hardcover collection of the articles known as "The Owl Pen". This book, which went through many editions, was followed by four others written by Wells and illustrated by his wife, including The Moonstruck Two, a book about their trip down the Mississippi.
As time passed in her career as a book illustraor Oille began using scraperboard and linocut as being just as effective for illustration as the more demanding wood engraving.
In the 1960's the couple moved to Virginia for 18 years and then to the Bahamas. It appears that during this time away from Canada Oille did not continue her art in any way and she was virtually forgotten in Canada despite the continued popularity of "The Owl Pen". After Wells' death she returned to Canada in the early 1990's, living in Orillia, Ontario, very near her ancestral roots and the countryside of "The Owl Pen". She is buried in the family plot in Elgin County.
Bibliography of Books Illustrated by Lucille Oille
- Wells, Kenneth, The Owl Pen, 1947
- McArthur, Peter In Pastures Green, 1948
- Wells, Kenneth, By Moonstone Creek, 1949
- Morgan, Joan, Castle Quebec, 1949
- Wells, Kenneth, Up Medonte Way, 1951
- Morrison, George, Country Parson, 1953
- Wells, Kenneth, By Jumping Cat Bridge, 1956
- Wells, Kenneth, The Moonstruck Two, c 1964
Some of the material in this article is taken from an article in The Devil's Artisan, A Journal of the Printing Arts, Number 32, 1993
