Eileen Alice Soper (1905 - 1990) - Etchings of Childhood.

Eileen Alice Soper made her first etching at the age of only thirteen, in 1918. When her etched work was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts summer exhibition in 1921, the sixteen year old Eileen attracted immediate attention and her future success was assured. Childhood was to be Eileen Alice Soper’s constant theme – children at play being the particular subject of her charming etchings. Over the next ten years she produced around 160 original etchings, the popularity of which has endured to the present day.

In 1929 Wallace L. DeWolf, the President of the Print Committee at the Art Institute of Chicago, arranged for the entire collection of Eileen Alice Soper’s work to date to be purchased for the Art Institute's permanent collection.

Eileen Soper's last etched works were produced at the beginning of the 1930’s, after which she moved from treating children as her subject to making them her public, turning to illustrating the famous childrens’ books of Enid Blyton.