Marjorie Maitland Howard


Marjorie Maitland Howard was a versatile modeller, sculptor, and book illustrator who was associated with the Institute of Archaeology in London where she worked from 1948 to 1960.

Early life

Daughter of artist and civil servant Henry James Howard, Margaret Maitland Howard was born 31 July 1898 in Barnet, and grew up at Sutton, Surrey, where she spent most of her life. She was educated at the Royal Academy School of Art from 1917, and exhibited regularly between 1923 and 1935 at the Academy's summer exhibitions.

Career

Howard had an early career in book illustration, producing an illustrated edition of the Fables of Aesop that was published by John Lane at The Bodley Head in 1926. She also illustrated Elizabeth Ward's Who goes to the wood.
In 1946, she illustrated Frederick Zeuner's Dating the past: An introduction to geochronology which went through several editions and was still in print in 1970.
From 1948 until her retirement in 1960, she worked at the Institute of Archaeology, now part of University College London. She created models for Frederick Zeuner to use in his lectures and busts of V. Gordon Childe and Mortimer Wheeler.
In 1956, she supervised archaeological work at Balawat for the British Institute for the Study of Iraq and subsequently prepared drawings of the Balawat Gates.

Later life

After her retirement from the Institute of Archaeology she continued to illustrate books, collaborating particularly with Ian Wolfram Cornwall on his series of books about the prehistoric world. She died 31 August 1983.

Selected books illustrated by Marjorie Maitland Howard