A
Selection of Prints by Modern
British Artists
These
links: Modern
British 01 and Modern
British 02, will allow
you to view the featured prints
from the
two previous
selections of Modern
British Artists |
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also :
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print featured here, please contact
us. When
a print has been sold it will be marked
as Sold.
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JAMES
McNEILL WHISTLER
Lowell, Massachusetts 1834 – 1903 London
Whistler
considered The “Adam & Eve”, Old Chelsea an important transitional plate between his earlier Thames Set etchings, with their clarity of line and overall minutiae of detail, and the ensuing impressionistic Venice plates.
Unbroken
outline gave way to an atmospheric flickering
patchwork of repeated short lines, conjuring
form and light from the pattern of shadows.
The “Adam and Eve”,
Old Chelsea
Kennedy 175 ii/ii; Lochnan 176; Glasgow 182 iii/iii (plate cancelled in the ‘4th’ state)
Original etching, 1878.
Third state, with the butterfly ‘monogram’ in the sky above the church tower.
Published state. First issued by Hogarth & Son 1879.
Probably a later impression (it was exhibited in exhibitions throughout the rest of Whistler’s life and in a memorial exhibition), the butterfly printing quite faintly.
On thin old laid paper, trimmed to narrow/thread margins. An unobtrusive short repaired tear at the top edge.
£3000
The
Adam & Eve pub had already been demolished some years, to make way for the construction of the Chelsea Embankment in 1874, when Whistler etched this plate. He possibly used photographs or other representations as an aide memoire; seeing such images perhaps sparking his interest in recreating the old waterfront as he remembered it before its destruction.
The
view is taken from old Battersea Bridge,
and as printed, is in reverse.
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AUGUSTUS
JOHN
Tenby 1878 – 1961 Fordingbridge
John’s early etchings, from 1901-02, were inspired by Rembrandt and like Rembrandt, John etched a number of self-portraits.
His first etching show, in 1906, at the Chenil Galleries, for which his early plates were editioned, and new additional plates etched specially, included ten self-portraits.
All were printed in editions of 25, organised by Knewstub, director of the gallery, who also allocated numbers haphazardly to all the plates.
Self-Portrait
: bust in an oval
Campbell Dodgson 9 iii/iii
; Knewstub Plate No.24
125 x 100 mm
Original etching, c1902-5.
Signed in pencil.
Edition of 25. With the usual ink annotations
by Knewstub, including the edition number
23/25.
Printed with platetone on laid paper
with a tiny watermark of a star. A couple
of slight foxmarks in the margins.
Sold
The
edition of 25 comprised impressions in both
the second state, with drypoint lines at
the lower right extending beyond the ‘oval’, and in the third state, as here, with these lines removed.
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ROGER FRY
Highgate, London 1866 – 1934 London
Bloomsbury
group painter, art critic and theorist, Fry
founded the Omega Workshops and championed
English Post-Impressionism and the plastic
qualities and formal relations in visual
art.
He
was only active as a woodcut artist during
and just after the Omega period and these
twelve woodcuts were his last works in the
medium.
“Twelve
Original Woodcuts by Roger Fry”
Woolmer 13
215 x 150 mm (page)
The book, hand-printed and published by Leonard & Virginia Wolf at the Hogarth Press, Hogarth House, Richmond, 1921. A single woodcut printed to each sheet, each preceding sheet blank except for the plate number and title in red.
Printed on deep cream textured substantial wove paper.
Lacking the marbled cover (though with a modern ‘substitute’); two sheets loose from the sewing. Generally very good condition, a pale small waterstain just affecting part of the outside sheet edge of a few pages. The title page with off-set staining at the edges from the missing wrappers.
Sold
Virginia
Woolf noted in her diary for the 12th April
1921
Roger
[came in] again last night, scraping at his
woodcuts while I sewed; the sound like that
of a large pertinacious rat.
And
on the 25 November she wrote
Roger’s woodcuts, 150 copies, have been gulped down in two days. I have just finished stitching the last copies – all
but six.
In
a letter of 2 December 1921 she commented
that
another
[edition is] to be printed, folded, stitched
and bound instantly.
By
the 30 December 1921 she noted that the book
had gone into a third (and final) printing.
The
woodcuts comprise:
I
Self-Portrait
II
The Striped Dress
III
Still Life
IV
The Grotto
V Ste Agnès
VI The Novel
VII Langle sur l’Anglin
VIII The London Garden
IX Two Nudes
X Interior
XI Dessert
X Iris and Vase
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FRANK
HILL
Wandsworth 1881 – 1981
A
watercolour painter, designer and etcher,
Frank Hill trained at Putney School of Art
and at the Central. He exhibited between
1926 and 1930 at the Walker Art Gallery,
Liverpool and Manchester City Art Gallery
annual salons.
Synthesis
151 x 223 mm
Original etching, 1920.
The plate monogrammed.
Signed in pencil.
The sheet numbered in the extreme lower left
corner, 32. No edition size is specified.
On cream wove.
Sold
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EDMUND BLAMPIED R.E.
Ville Brée, Jersey 1886 – 1966 St Aubin, Jersey
The
Bathing Machine
Subsequent to Campbell Dodgson;
Arnold & Appleby 119
177 x 224 mm
Original drypoint, September 1926.
The plate signed and dated.
Signed in pencil and numbered 19/100.
On cream laid paper watermarked ‘David Strang’.
(Strang printed the edition.)
Sold
One
of Blampied’s Ostend subjects.
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FREDERICK
AUSTIN
A.R.E.
Leicester 1902 – 1990 Ontario
Frederick
followed his elder brother, Robert Austin,
to the Royal College of Art in London, following
initial training at Leicester School of Art.
Frederick too was awarded the Prix de Rome,
in 1927.
Mill
at Bures, Suffolk
114 x 275 mm
Original etching, 1927.
The plate signed and
dated. Signed and dated in pencil and numbered
1/50.
On cream laid paper.
Sold
A
mill had been on this site at Bures for a
thousand years, but the mill house etched
by Austin dates from 1650. The mill buildings
still stand but are no longer in use.
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HARRY
MORLEY R.E.
Leicester 1881 – 1943 London
Of
the preceding generation, Morley, like the
two Austin brothers, also attended Leicester
School of Art, where, in 1900, he won a Royal
College of Art scholarship in architectural
studies. He was articled to an architect
in 1905 but a visit to Italy in 1907 decided
him to become a painter instead. In 1908
he went to Paris to study.
He exhibited at
the Royal Academy from 1909.
Morley probably took up etching about 1923-24,
during the Etching ‘Boom’ and
in 1928, at the suggestion of Robert Austin, he turned to engraving.
A
Perugian Balcony
176 x 125 mm
Original engraving, 1931.
Signed in pencil.
Edition of 60.
On cream wove paper.
Sold
A
rather nice contrast between the prosaic
title and the pet monkey and still life group
inside the room.
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HENRY
MOORE
Castleford, Yorkshire 1898 – 1986 Much
Hadham, Hertfordshire
The
greatest British sculptor of the 2oth century,
Moore’s activity as a printmaker was infrequent and sporadic before the 1960’s.
He tried etching briefly in 1951, under the tutelage of Merlyn Evans.
This
little experimental plate from 1951 (not
editioned until 1977), still with intimations
of surrealism, is related to his contemporary
metal sculpture. The small heads recall those
of his Standing Figures of 1950, inspired
by photographs he had seen of tall African
tribesmen, while the general theme and the
particular stance of the left hand figure,
anticipate his sculptures of seated figures
1952-53, such as King and Queen.
Two
Seated Figures
Cramer 35, only state
73 x 124 mm
Original drypoint, 1951.
As issued 1977. The only formal edition.
Edition of 50.
Signed in pencil and numbered 17/50.
On cream laid paper, a little mount-stained.
Sold
Only
2 proofs were printed in 1951. A further
5 proofs were printed in 1962 and 8 in 1969.
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