|
URBAN
& INDUSTRIAL IMAGERY
 Although of necessity, as a source of patronage, early
printmakers were based in towns and cities, urban imagery
occurs surprisingly little in 16th century prints.
Perhaps because the discovery of landscape was a 16th
century preoccupation it was landscape that was usually
selected in preference to townscape for biblical and
mythological settings by engravers of the period.
The
17th century saw a change in sensibilities. Callot
and della Bella celebrated the everyday life and
the architectural backdrop of the cities of Florence,
Rome and Paris. Hollar recorded the architecture
of London before the Great Fire. The following century
Hogarth commented on London society of all echelons
while in Rome Piranesi’s imagination was caught
both by the remaining splendours of ancient Rome
as well as the monuments of Renaissance and Baroque
architecture. In Venice Canaletto captured sunlight
on real and imaginary stone edifices. The town and
city became subjects in their own right and not just
backdrops to other themes.
With
the Etching Revival in the second half of the 19th
century and the Etching Boom in the early decades
of the 20th, urban imagery abounded. The number of
printmakers active increased hugely; they were drawn
to the capital cities of Europe for their training
at a time when London was the hub of a world empire
and Paris the centre of the art world. Population
increase, new building projects, new methods of transport,
mass production, made city streets lively and demanding
of artistic expression. Artists approached the subject
with a wealth of individual styles and techniques,
diverse interests and observations, which resulted
in a dynamic variety of imagery.
Every
aspect of urban life was touched on, from the purely
architectural to street life; topography of famous
sights (& sites)
and historic architecture, dereliction, demolition,
construction, inner city, city centre, suburbia, cafés,
pubs, theatres, libraries and museums, parks, sporting
activity, buses, tubes, railways, street vendors, high
street shopping, rivers, canals, ports, industrial
activity.
In an era when industry and industrial towns have
become clean (at least in principle) and technology
is governed by the microchip, images of our heritage
from the industrial revolution take on a romantic nostalgia,
much as earlier in the century the decline in traditional
farming methods and country crafts with the move towards
mass production gave rise to a final celebration of
English pastoralism. Tenements, regimented industrial
brick terraces, soaring factory chimneys, power stations,
bottle kilns, the landscape of the slagheap, are specifically
20th century additions to the motifs of urban imagery.
The catalogue is arranged broadly in a chronological
sequence.
A selection of stock focusing on an urban or industrial
theme has thrown up an array of interesting minor artists
working in the 20th century.
Published 1994
48 pages, 144 items described and illustrated in b/w
(UK
Price: £7, International orders: £10)
Published together with
RURAL PRINTS TO CELEBRATE THE GALLERY OPENING
Opening
exhibition after
the move to Oxfordshire
It
seemed perverse to mark the opening of my new gallery,
indeed my first gallery (open as usual by appointment),
after our move to the rural delights of north Oxfordshire
with an exhibition of urban and industrial imagery.
The
delayed Spring catalogue was accordingly accompanied
by a supplementary brochure of new stock more appropriate
to the venue of the exhibition.
The
catalogue comprises a small selection of scenes of
country life, country crafts, farm animals, landscape
and prints and artists with Oxfordshire connections.
Published
1994 together with Urban & Industrial Imagery.
12
pages, 27 items (numbered 145-172), 29 b/w
illustrations (one item un-illustrated).
Index
of Artists in Rural Prints
- Anderson
S
- Arms
J T
- Badmin
S
- Bevan
R P
- Bol
H
- Borcht
P van de
- Clausen
G
- Collaert
A
- Coxon
R J
- Craig
J
- Daumier
H
- Gaskin
A J
- Grossmann
R
- Hodges
P O
- Lack
M
- Liebermann
M
- Lock
A
- Mataré E
- Strang
D
- Strang
I
- Tournour
M
- White
E
(A
copy of Rural Prints will be sent free of
charge, upon request, to anyone ordering a copy of Urban
& Industrial Imagery.)
|
|
Artists
included in the catalogue:
- Abbé S
van
- Alleaume
L
- Antinori
P C
- Armington
F M
- Armour
J R
- Austin
F
- Austin
R
- Baertson
A
- Bauman
P
- Béjot
E
- Bliss
D P
- Bloxam
J M
- Bol
H
- Bone
M
- Bouttats
G
- Brangwyn
F
- Brauniger
P
- Buhot
F
- Burroughs
E R
- Callot
J
- Campbell
N M
- Casbolt
W
- Collaert
A
- Cowern
R T
- Delâtre
E
- Dodd
F
- Figura
H
- Fischer
O
- Fleming
I
- Fraser
I
- Garwood
T
- Ginner
C
- Goff
R
- Graf
O
- Gross
A
- Grossmann
R
- Hackney
A
- Haden
F S
- Hall
C
- Heyman
C
- Hollar
W
- Holloway
E
- Holmes
K
- Howarth
A
- Ibels
H G
- Illingworth
A S
- Kapp
H B
- Laborde
C
- Lalanne
M
- Leighton
C
- Liebermann
M
- Lumsden
E S
- MacLaughlan
D S
- Mansfield
E
- Manson
J B
- Masereel
F
- Meid
H
- Meryon
C
- Monk
W
- Müller
R
- Nevinson
C R W
- Nieuwenkamp
W O J
- Oppler
E
- Osborne
M
- Pallmann
K
- Pennel
J
- Plowman
G T
- Pougny
C
- Raffaëlli
J F
- Reeve
R S
- Richards
F
- Rosenberg
L
- Rossini
L
- Roussel
T
- Rushbury
H
- Sanders
V
- Scharf
T
- Schutz
A
- Schwabe
R
- Short
F
- Slaney
N
- Sparks
N
- Spencer
N W
- Steinlen
T A
- Steyn
S
- Taiée
A
- Taylor
C W
- Taylor
E W
- Thomson
L E
- Tod
M M
- Vidal
P
- Visscher
C J
- Vos
M de
- Walcot
W
- Walford
A C
- Ward
L M
- Warlow
H G
- Warner
E
- Way
T R
- Webb
C C
- Whistler
J M
- White
E
- Wolff
H
- Zeising
W
- Zierath
W
Return to the top |
