Joseph Webb

Joseph Webb 1908-1962

I first saw Joseph Webb’s etching Rat Barn (1928) in the mid 80’s through British Print dealer Elizabeth Harvey-Lee. I remember being struck by the dark gothic grandeur of the building as it rose up from the primordial stone cliffs in the foreground. I also responded to the way the artist had built up the rich blacks through a series of successive etches of overlaid lines. It has taken many years for me to acquire these three works by this artist as they seem quite difficult to track down.

In Joseph Webb, the lights that flit across my brain by Robert Meyrick 2007, the author notes that Webb often made journeys to various parts of the UK to visually record  aspects of Britian’s architectural heritage which may have been threatened by development. He was a solitary person who often made these journeys on foot.

Like Drury and Sutherland Joseph Webb was also influenced by the etchings of the senior artist F.L. Griggs and his interest and love for ancient architecture.  Webb visited him at Chipping Campden in 1929.

 “Griggs taught Webb to mix warm black inks and convinced him of the virtues of using antique laid papers… Both artists shared a love for ancient buildings and their works convey similar religious and mystical concerns. Griggs became the principal contemporary influence on Webb’s etchings. He not only demonstrated to Webb his wiping and printing techniques- taking impressions of Rat Barn and Dream Barn- but imparted his enthusiasm but imparted his enthusiasm for the emotional power of Samuel palmer’s work.” (Meyrick, 2007:P16, 18 ) 

Chepstow 1928

 In the summer of 1928 Webb travelled to Gloucestershire and Southeast Wales returning along the West Sussex coast. While in Wales Webb travelled along the Wye Valley walk where he made several drawings including Chepstow from the cliff and Chepstow which he subsequently made into etchings later that year. (Meyrick, 2007)

 The rich impression of Chepstow on wove paper is from the first state. It was subsequently issued in an edition of 50 and is from the Ex collection of Beryl Gasgoyne and Jane Furst.

Ann Hathaway's Cottage 1945

This recent acquisition is the fourth state and trial proof of Ann Hathaway's Cottage, a favourite subject for many artists. In aspite of the accuracy of the subject, Webb is still able to imbue it with a sense of mystery through the exceptional treatment of the moonlight sky and the romantic light  which illuminates the thatched roof, wall and ssurrounding folliage.

Landscape River Scene C1938

This unfinished etching is one of Webb’s largest. The etching was printed in an edition of 30 by Clive Vosper in 1987 and with Beryl Gascoigne’s estate stamp recto and Inscribed by the printer in pencil.

Robin Tanner

The notion of place is important to many artists. Significant places become a stimulus for their creativity and a means of focusing their attention on parts of the environment they form special bonds with. In the work of Robin Tanner who was born in Bristol in 1904, the area of North West Wiltshire became a place of personal significance and reflection. From as early as 1927 many of his etchings are based on an idealistic unspoiled view of the Wiltshire landscape. Since their marriage in 1931 Robin and his wife Heather lived at Old Chapel Field in the village of Kington Langley, Wiltshire.  

The Road Maker, etching 1928 (first edition)

 In 1924 while Robin Tanner taught at Blackheath Road Boys School in Greenwich by day, he became an evening student at Goldsmiths College London under the instruction of Stanley Anderson.  While at Goldsmiths he became friends with many of the day students including Paul Drury took Tanner under his wing.  He invited him home to Lancaster Lodge to meet his father, the artist, Alfred Drury and was instrumental in introducing him to a number of other artists and print dealers such as David Strang and John Nicholson. In 1928 Tanner became a full time student at Goldsmiths. In that same year he also bought the Old Chapel Field property at Wiltshire.

The Hedger, etching 1928 (first edition)

The first two etchings included, “The Road Maker” and “The Hedger”1928 were among Tanners earliest and were intended to be part of a series on the theme of country labours. The “Woodman” was the only other etching in the series to be completed.  Both etchings show the influence of the Goldsmiths students as well as of Palmer and Griggs but in particular of Griggs.  Tanner met Griggs on varnishing day at the Royal academy in 1929.

In many of Tanners later etchings like” Gray’s Elegy” 1980, illustrated (from the memorial portfolio),  a combination of natural and rustic man made forms  frame the view into a distant often moonlit  field  of hedgerows, villages and forests. 

Gray's Elergy, 1980 (from the memorial portfolio)

John Wills

I occasionally purchase unknown etchings because something about them is very appealing. It draws me in. Initially I am often not sure why I respond to such works, but my reaction is to purchase them initially and find more about them at a later time when I come across more information. Our personal response to images may be triggered by something about an image which touches us personally or our knowledge of other works which are similar in style or content that link the work in question to others that have come before.

Piper, 1936

Such is the case in point with the two John Wills etchings on this post. When I found these etchings I was immediately drawn into the Palmer like world he had created within these small works.  In “the Piper” etching the musician plays his tune to mysterious figure inside one of the small rustic cottages in the valley.   The other etching “The High Hedge” or “Twilight of the World”?  (1936) also contains elements of rustic villages and exotic foliage and an illuminating lantern in the foreground. Both etching have a miniature jewel  like quality that are reminiscent of the primitive quality of some of the work produced by the Ancients during their time in Shoreham.

The High hedge, 1936

I know very little about the artist  but I  know that John Wills studied at the Royal College of Art sometime in the 30’s under the instruction of Robert Austin and Malcolm Osborne.  After leaving college he lived and worked in Gloucestershire.

Revelation to Revolution

In an earlier post I discussed the importance of the artist Paul Drury and made mention of some of his early prints made while he was a student of Goldsmiths College in during the early 20s. The information following is an overview of an important book written by Jolyon Drury on the etching revival during this period and gives the reader a rare insight into the work of Drury and his colleagues.

Revelation to Revolution: The Legacy of Samuel Palmer

The Revival and Evolution of Pastoral Printmaking by Paul Drury and the Goldsmith's School in the 20th Century. By Jolyon Drury

This book describes the revival of pastoral printmaking by the group of etchers who were students at Goldsmiths College in the 1920s including Paul Drury, Graham Sutherland, William Larkins, Edward Bouverie-Hoyton and Alexander Walker. It traces their influences, the evolution of their technique and this group’s later development through the eyes of Paul Drury. It is also a tale of the close and complicated relationship between Drury and his father, the sculptor Alfred Drury RA, and of their artist friends and colleagues representative of their age spanning a little over a century.

The Goldsmiths group’s interest in Samuel Palmer coincided with the first important exhibition of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1926, when these young artists were picked out for working in a similar but more contemporary style merging Palmer’s ideas with the approach of F.L. Griggs from fully two years before. This testimonial greatly assisted the group to early success, with their impressions much sought after in the American market. This account follows Paul Drury and the Goldsmiths group’s careers through their early success, through the set-back of the Depression, through their revival in the 1930s, through the Second World War and through the revolutionary 1960s. English printmaking flourished as result of this turbulent period with Drury guiding the R. E. through major reforms to reunite the generations and styles of printmaking into the cohesive body that it is today.

After Work, etching, Paul Drury 1926

To find out more or to place an order for the book please email:
ronald.mcburnie@jcu.edu.au (in Australia) 
 jolyon.drury@btinternet.com (in the UK)  

Welby Sherman

 Welby Sherman, The Baccante 1827

It is thought that this wood engraving The Baccante was cut from an Edward Calvert design by the artist, Welby Sherman. It is one of two engravings made after the subject. This version was released in 1904 in the Carfax Portfolio in an edition of 30 impressions .The other engraving of which there is only one impression (British Museum) was probably cut by Calvert when he was learning wood engraving, possibly under the supervision of  Sherman.

In the listed information on item 14 in Campbell Fine Art Catalogue 11 (2004) the author states that;

“It appears far more likely that Welby Sherman’s engraving was the first engraved version (probably based on a drawing or painting by Calvert),  possibly even produced as Sherman instructed the inexperienced Calvert in Wood engraving techniques… The highly evocative design with its strongly pagan associations is filled with the ecstatic lyricism which characterises Calvert’s finest works. The design of the musician is thought to be derived from Greco-Roman figures and may have originated from a gemstone; however the idyllic pastoral setting appears completely of Calvert’s own invention and is in tune with his passionate images of the ‘Ancients’ who, along with William Blake, had been inspired by the discovery of an untainted countryside around the village of Shoreham during the mid-1820’s”

Campbell (Autumn 2004), p25

There is very little information written about Sherman or the part he played with the Ancients. It is thought that Palmer’s wood engraving, Harvest under a Crescent Moon was probably engraved by Sherman in 1826. It is also known that Sherman stayed at Shoreham for extended periods and was often short of money. He even swindled Palmer’s Brother out of his family inheritance of £500  in a billiard game, and fled abroad.

Edward Bouverie-Hoyton

My interest in Bouverie-Hoyton’s etchings grew from my study of Samuel Palmer and the young artists studying at Goldsmiths College who became interested in his work. Edward Bouverie- Hoyton was in the same etching class as Paul Drury and Graham Sutherland. They remained  friends throughout their lives. His early Goldsmith’s work came under the spell of Palmer but he was also influenced by the etchings of artists such as John Crome and John Sell Cotman of the Norwich School who were masters of the English watercolour medium.

Edward Bouverie-Hoyton, Trevignano 1927

Unlike the early etchings of Sutherland and Drury, Bouverie Hoyton’s etched landscapes often leave large areas of sky as open areas of space. This treatment of the sky gives many of the landscapes a cut out or stage like quality and creates a sense of spatial ambiguity in the etchings.

Edward Bouverie-Hoyton, Virgil's Farm 1927

Edward Bouverie Hoyton, Morganhayes 1927

In the etching Morganhayes (1927), the carefully placed decorative tree breaks up the open sky areas of the etching and in doing so flattens the image. Bouverie-Hoyton is not so interested in producing etched lanscapes where the size and thickness of marks produce a traditional sense of distant space.

Edward Bouverie Hoyton, Plover's Barrow

 In Plovers Barrow the foreground areas are drawn in minute detail and the low view-point allows the middle ground forms to end where the blank expanse of sky begins.

Edward Bouverie-Hoyton, Sleechwood 1935

Edward Bouverie Hoyton was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1926. He went on to become a lecturer at Leeds College (1934), eventually becoming the Principal of the Penzance School of Art (1941-65). Unfortunately there is little information written on the work of Bouverie-Hoyton. I hope in the future that will be readdressed.