A COLLECTION OF ORIGINAL PAINTINGS DEPICTING FAIRYLAND. Together with 'Nature Spirits: Brush Drawings by Ingrid Gibb' and 'Fairy Worlds and Workers: A natural history of fairyland by Marjorie Spock'.

21 original paintings by Ingrid Gibb in watercolour, ink, acrylic and pencil on paper, many mounted on card with hand-written captions. Most are signed. One is dated 1978. The paintings range in size from 4 x 6 cm to 20.5 x 20 cm. The paintings vividly depict 'the Middle Kingdom', or fairyland, and its many inhabitants such as gnomes, salamanders and elves. The pieces are in very good condition, a few have lightly creased corners and some of the card mounts have some spotting and rubbing. Together with two softcover books in which some of the paintings are published: 'Nature Spirits: Brush Drawings by Ingrid Gibb', 1975 and 'Fairy Worlds and Workers: A natural history of fairyland by Marjorie Spock', 1980. Both volumes are first editions and are profusely illustrated in colour by Gibb and contain text by Spock. They are in very good condition, the extremities a little rubbed and creased. 'Fairy Worlds and Workers' has a few small pen corrections to misspelled words in the text, the contents of both volumes are otherwise clean. A lovely and unusual collection.

Ingrid Gibb is an artist about whom very little is known, though through the dedications to Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in both of the present books (in 'Nature Spirits': "In memory of the Good Man, Rudolf Steiner / who understood so well the living forces behind nature"), her collaborations with Marjorie Spock, and her having taught Eurythmy (a performance art developed by Steiner and his wife Marie Steiner von-Sivers) in South Africa in the 1920s, it can be gathered that the spiritual science philosophies and theories of Steiner were of lifelong importance to her. The paintings depict a misty fairy realm, which Gibb and Spock both name 'the Middle Kingdom', and its inhabitants, fluidly rendered in transparent jewel-like colours which suggest glowing light, reminiscent of the art made by Steiner and the style adopted and encouraged by the Anthroposophy movement, as well as visionary art and modern spiritual art in general. In 'Fairy Worlds and Workers', Spock explains the Middle Kingdom by stating "if God's is the world of creative power and ours the world of created objects, the Middle Kingdom is the land of life that lies between them, serving as the bridge for their interaction". She also describes Steiner's belief in and teachings of this realm, and how the elemental spirits that inhabit it serve as custodians of nature. Marjorie Spock (1904-2008) was an American teacher and biodynamic gardener. She studied Eurythmy and Anthroposophy with Marie Steiner von-Sivers and Rudolf Steiner at the Goetheanum in Dornach for many years before returning to the USA where she taught at a number of progressive schools. She was a passionate organic gardener and in the 1950s brought a case against The United States government in relation to the heavy and indiscriminate spraying of the harmful pesticide DDT. The case became one of the initial inspirations behind Rachel Carson's groundbreaking environmental science book 'Silent Spring'. Spock described her understanding of the fairy realm as coming from her close relationship with nature as a gardener. A wonderful collection of original art and accompanying books, portraying the lasting influence of a new spiritual movement upon two women and how they reinterpreted it and made it their own within the context of the modern world that they lived in, four decades after the death of Rudolf Steiner.