The Monadnock Center for History and Culture’s current exhibition, “Nora S. Unwin: A Retrospective,” will finish its run at the end of September. A final curator-led gallery talk will take place on Thursday, Sept. 26, at 10:30 a.m. Admission to the exhibition and gallery talk are free.

Nora S. Unwin (1907-1982) was a British artist, printmaker and illustrator. She showed an early inclination to art, saying, “I knew by the time I was five or six that I would be an artist.”

She received her first illustration commission at age 18 just before she began her training at the Royal College of Art in London. Following her graduation in 1932, the British Museum acquired two her wood engravings for its permanent collection. With this early success, Unwin embarked on a career as both a fine artist and an illustrator, a dual path she pursued for the rest of her life.

In 1937, her twin sister, Nancy, introduced Unwin to Elizabeth Yates, a young American author living in London with her businessman husband William McGreal. Yates and Unwin immediately hit it off and began collaborating. The first of their many book collaborations was published in 1938.

When World War II began, Yates and McGreal returned to the United States and hoped to bring Unwin, but she could not get the necessary visa to leave the country. Elizabeth and Bill McGreal settled in Peterborough, buying an old farm they named “Shieling,” meaning “sheltered place.” Today the property is Shieling Forest and serves as a site for forestry education and trail hiking.

In 1946, Unwin finally received the necessary paperwork and flew to the United States to reunite with the McGreals. Originally planned as an extended visit, Unwin said she soon realized, “I had found my new home.” She quickly established herself with a gallery in Boston and in American publishing circles, producing illustrations for two books, “Joseph,” and “Footnotes on Nature,” in 1947.

Unwin would spend the rest of her life living in Peterborough making prints, paintings, collages and drawings as well as pursuing her illustration work. Over her lifetime, she illustrated over 100 volumes. In the 1960s, she began teaching at Sharon Arts Center.

At the end of her life, she made plans to leave the contents of her studio to the Sharon Arts Center. After her death in 1982, Sharon Arts Center created the Nora Unwin Studio and a retrospective exhibition. Other Sharon Arts exhibitions of Unwin’s work followed between 1990 and 2010.

Sharon Arts Center merged with NH Institute of Art in 2012. In 2018, New England College acquired NH Institute of Art and a year later, the Sharon Arts Center school and gallery closed. The New England College board of trustees donated the Nora Unwin Collection to the Monadnock Center in 2022.

The collection encompasses Unwin’s entire artistic career, with work from her childhood to the end of her life. It includes over 175 framed wood engravings, watercolors, collages and drawings, 36 sketchbooks, her engraving tools and the original wood blocks. In addition to the framed works of art, more than 1,000 prints, drawings and other works on paper are preserved in the collection.

While the retrospective exhibition will close on Friday, Sept. 27, the Monadnock Center is planning additional exhibitions for the future.

“We are also looking at ways that we could create a permanent Unwin gallery in our building,” stated Monadnock Center director Michelle Stahl. “Unwin’s work has been so well-received over the last year, we want to continue sharing the collection with the community. For some, seeing the exhibition has been like visiting with an old friend. For others, it has been a revelation. So many guests left the museum rooms and said, ‘Wow! I have never heard of Nora Unwin, and I am so glad I saw this.’”

The Monadnock Center for History and Culture is located at 19 Grove St. in downtown Peterborough. To learn more about the center’s exhibitions and programs, visit monadnockcenter.org.