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Michael Blaker R.E.
(Hove 1928 – 2018 Ramsgate)
Self Portrait, aged 28. From an original etching, 1956.
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MICHAEL BLAKER R.E.
Hove 1928 – 2018 Ramsgate
A painter and etcher, Blaker enrolled at Brighton School of Art in 1945. His initial two years did not include etching, which he only discovered, with some excitement, by seeing into the etching room while painting a mural on the School’s staircase wall. For his final two years he specialised in Illustration, because that included etching classes. A decade later, 1955-56, he returned to the School to attend the Friday etching classes.
After a peripatetic, somewhat Bohemian way of life, in the mid 1970’s Michael met Catriona, who would become his wife, and settled down. They bought a house in Rochester in 1978, acquired a cat and two dogs, and remained there till they moved to Ramsgate in 1987; their three storey house being both home and studio.
Michael’s etchings mirror his life, a visual account of places, people, and animals that were important to him, frequently observed with a humorous eye.
It was only from 1965 that Michael began to edition his etchings and in later years, for flexibility, he increased the potential edition size, numbering them in some cases as from up to 300; though far fewer impressions were ever printed.
For economy, Michael etched on zinc rather than copper, and generally used both sides of the plate.
All the etchings offered here are from his studio.
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The Gothic Revival church, designed and built in local black flint, by Pugin, adjoining his house, The Grange, in Ramsgate.
Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852), architect, designer, author, theorist and leading figure in the English Roman Catholic and Gothic revivals, settled in Ramsgate in 1843, having bought a plot of land on West Cliff, on which to build his house.
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Snow at St Augustines, Ramsgate
344 x 445 mm
Original hand-coloured etching, c 1990 or later.
The plate signed.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 8/300.
On wove.
Offered together with the etched zinc plate. Another etching, of a Continental street scene (Salzburg?) with Horse-drawn carriages, on the reverse.
£500
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Fishing Boats in the Harbour
(Ramsgate ?)
340 x 439 mm
Original hand-coloured etching, c1990.
The plate signed.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 20/300.
On Somerset wove
£300
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Morning at the Boulangerie,
Montmartre
335 x 429 mm
Hand-coloured etching, c1980.
The plate signed and inscribed Montmartre Paris.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 19/300.
On wove.
£300
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Sleeping Cat
400 x 502 mm
Original hand-coloured etching and aquatint, c1980’s. The plate signed.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 1/175.
On wove.
£250
Arthur, life size, a cat who visited the Blaker home regularly.
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Through Blackfriars Bridge
277 x 370 mm
Original hand-coloured etching.
The plate signed.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 9/200.
On wove.
£250
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Spring Idyll
140 x 183 mm
Original hand-coloured etching.
The plate signed.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 5/250.
On wove.
£120
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