John Farleigh

John Farleigh CBE (16 June 1900 – 30 March 1965), also known as Frederick William Charles Farleigh, was an English wood-engraver, noted for his illustrations of George Bernard Shaw's work The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, which caused controversy when released due to the religious, sexual and racial themes within the writing and John Farleigh's complementary (and risqué) wood engravings commissioned by Shaw for the book.

Farleigh left school at 14 and enlisted as an apprentice at the Artists' Illustrators Agency in London, applying himself to lettering, wax engravings and black and white drawings, intended for advertising.

He resumed his apprenticeship and was awarded a government grant enabling him to enrol for three years at the London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts (later the Central School of Art and Design).

The teaching staff included Bernard Meninsky and Noel Rooke who trained him in wood-engraving.

The writer and illustrator Judith Kerr said that he was the person who taught her most when she was doing evening classes at St Martin's School of Art during the war.