The border between the fine and applied arts is not always clear, and Britain in the middle years of the twentieth century provides a perfect example of what can often be a rewarding cross-fertilization. Sarah Nechamkin is a rare survivor of an entire generation of talented British artist-illustrators/designers who moved with ease between painting, illustration, graphic art, design and advertising, fusing craftsmanship and artistry in their differing techniques and media.

The leading figures– Sutherland, Ravilious, Bawden, Piper, Enid Marx – are often referred to as ‘neo-Romantics’ or ‘Romantic Moderns’, and if Nechamkin was fourteen years their junior, she can still be regarded as an emblematic if ‘younger’ member of this distinguished artistic movement. To complement her Ibizan landscapes and birds, the Museu Puget is pleased to show a small sample of her graphic oeuvre in publications that range across an astonishing seven decades.

From the 1937 catalogue covers for a leading London publisher, Chatto & Windus, to her recent book about Ibiza’s birds, what emerges is her ability to balance representation and suggestion, evoking scenes while giving free rein to the imagination of the reader and viewer. Three 1940s children’s tales illustrated in monochrome have indisputable charm, but her greatest graphic achievement must certainly be the colour illustrations for Blackie & Son which were published between 1965 and 1977.

Russian fairy tales, English nursery rhymes, and Ancient Greek legends are each depicted with enormous feeling and creativity; the last gave full scope for the beloved Mediterranean the artist knew so intimately, and if Ibizan elements can be detected in certain scenes, it is never to the detriment of the story, but infuses an authenticity often lacking in north European illustration. Taken as a whole, Sarah Nechamkin’s published work links together many of the greatest names in the Western canon, from Ovid and Homer to Brontë and Byron, from Hudson and Austen to Wagner and Beethoven. A lifetime achievement worthy of celebration by itself.

Martin Davies, Eivissa, November 2013