Biography
Louise Leonard is an Irish printmaker working principally in copper-plate etching and aquatint, with linocut, woodcut, and mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing) added more recently. Born in Dublin in 1960, she earned a BA in Visual Communication from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in 1983 and joined Graphic Studio Dublin in 2004 after completing courses at the studio in the late 1990s. She served on the Board of Directors at Graphic Studio Dublin from 2011 to 2015 and continues to teach linocut printmaking there.
Her prints are circulated through Graphic Studio Gallery and SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin, and her work is exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), the Royal Ulster Academy (RUA), and the Watercolour Society of Ireland (of which she is a member). Her solo exhibition 'A Body of Water' (Graphic Studio Gallery, 2019) and the 2021 'Landscape' show at the United Arts Club, Dublin, established the principal subjects of her practice — woodland, water, and natural form rendered through dense intaglio aquatint blacks and small-scale linocut compositions.
Leonard's mokuhanga 'Cock of the Walk' (26 × 34 cm) was selected for the Kanreki exhibition mounted by Graphic Studio Dublin to mark its 60th anniversary, the cohort organised around a brief that all participating artists incorporate the colour red. The exhibition was shown at The Model, Sligo (2020), Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin (April 2021), and travelled to the 9th International Mokuhanga Conference satellite event at Nara Prefectural Cultural Hall (30 November to 4 December 2021).
Her broader Graphic Studio Dublin print catalogue includes etching ('Cold hands, warm heart,' 'Persephone lost,' 'Whose woods these are I think I know,' 'Daily Bread,' 'Hold Fast,' 'Meeting with a remarkable tree'), aquatint and etching ('Persephone lost,' 'Magnolia Galaxy'), linocut ('All along the banks of the Royal Canal,' 'Alpbach'), and mokuhanga. Her work is held in major Irish institutions including the National Gallery of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, the National Library of Ireland, the National Botanic Gardens, the British Library, and Boston College, plus private collections in Ireland, the UK, Europe, North and South America, and Australia.
For Hanga's purposes, Leonard qualifies as a verified Irish printmaker with Graphic Studio Dublin membership since 2004, dual practice across Western intaglio and Japanese mokuhanga, Kanreki-cohort selection within the 60th-anniversary exhibition, and presence in the National Gallery of Ireland's print collection.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1960
- Nationality
- 🇮🇪Ireland
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Louise Leonard is an Irish printmaker working principally in copper-plate etching and aquatint, with linocut, woodcut, and mokuhanga (Japanese water-based woodblock printing) added more recently. Born in Dublin in 1960, she earned a BA in Visual Communication from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in 1983 and joined Graphic Studio Dublin in 2004 after completing courses at the studio in the late 1990s. She served on the Board of Directors at Graphic Studio Dublin from 2011 to 2015 and continues to teach linocut printmaking there.
Louise Leonard was active born in 1960. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Louise Leonard's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.