| Arabella Rankin | |
| Birth Date: | 1871 |
| Birth Place: | Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland |
| Death Date: | 1943 |
| Death Place: | Kensington, London, England |
| Nationality: | British |
Arabella Louisa Rankin (1871 – 1943) was a Scottish painter and colour woodcut artist.[1]
Rankin was born at Muthill in Perthshire.[2] Rankin contributed a story, "Kaitrin's Collection", to the 1893 Summer Number of the Dundee Weekly News.[3] [4] In 1896, Rankin also won first prize in a contest for artful embroidered book covers, run by Studio International magazine, with her Podley.[5] She also won first prize in a contest run by the same magazine in 1902, for a color illustration titled Sir Espérance.[6] In 1899, her watercolour titled "A Swimming Match" was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.[7]
Beyond these very early efforts, Rankin worked primarily with colour woodcuts. Early examples of her prints, such as The Striped Rocks (1920)[8] or Sligneach, Iona (1921),[9] show her using Japanese wood block techniques.[10] Later landscape works, such as Martyr's Bay, Iona and Iona, from 1924 and 1927 respectively, use a more conventional approach.
After a spell in Edinburgh, Rankin worked in London for a time. She returned to Scotland in 1913 and lived at Abbotsbrae in Crieff before returning to London in 1922. She lived in Kensington for the rest of her life.[11] Rankin was a member of the Colour Woodcut Society and from 1924 to 1935 exhibited regularly with the Society of Graver Painters in Colour. During her career she had some twenty-four pieces shown at the Royal Scottish Academy and also exhibited with the Society of Women Artists, and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.[12]
Both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum hold examples of her prints.[13] [14]