#hal bishop

Wood Engraving Wednesday

Reg Boulton

English relief engraver and stone letter cutter Reg Boulton (1923-2012) was well-known among his peers and in his community, and although he was a highly accomplished engraver, we don't think his work has received the attention it deserves. So, this week we present a few of his engravings that were printed as an insert in the article, "Reg Boulton -- Artist, Engraver" by Hal Bishop, former curator at the Exeter City Museum, published in Matrix 22 (Winter 2002), pp. 94-105, printed at John and Rosalind Randle’s Whittington Press in Risbury, Herefordshire, England in an edition of 740 copies. While Boulton engraved in wood, he also used other hard synthetic surfaces. Shown here are:

Vinyl engraving of a chancel arch figure from The Sculptures of Kilpeck (1987).

Perspex engraving the architecture of Bewdley from Aspects of Worcestershire (1989).

Boy with Violin (vinyl engraving).

Bookplate for John Richard Millburn (Perspex engraving).

Weardale (vinyl engraving).

Nude (Perspex engraving).

Our copies of Matrix are another donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

Wood Engraving Wednesday

Rachel Reckitt

Shown here are five of the original 16 wood engravings that were produced by British printmaker and sculptor Rachel Reckitt (1908-1995) that were intended for a new edition of George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss to be published by Paul Elek in 1951. But as Hal Bishop, former curator at the Exeter City Museum, observes:

Paul Elek went into liquidation and Reckitt's finest illustrative work was never to appear. . . . Fortunately Reckitt had taken an edition of six prints from each block, which allowed all sixteen to be exhibited to the first time in 1997. Shortly afterwards the blocks themselves came to light . . . .

As it turned out, to make the blocks in a time of post-war austerity, Reckitt had to sacrifice four of her large previously-engraved blocks, which were cut up and the new images for Mill engraved on the back. The bottom four prints shown here were reprinted as an insert to Hal Bishop’s article “Lost and Found, Rachel Reckitt's wood-engravings to The Mill on the Floss” in Matrix 26, Winter 2006, pp. 58-61. The first image, Maggie Reading, was printed on the dust jacket of the magazine. Click or tap on the image descriptions for the titles of each print.

Matrix 26 was printed in an edition of 760 copies by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in England, and is a donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025). In 2010, Whittington Press published Lost and Found as a limited-edition book of 225 copies with all 16 engravings for The Mill on the Floss printed from the original blocks along with reconstructions of the palimpsest images engraved on the reverse side of the blocks, and including Hal Bishop's full account of the story of these twice-used woodblocks.

View another post with engravings by Rachel Reckitt.

View more posts from Matrix.

View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.

Wood Engraving Wednesday

Today we were introduced to yet another wood engraver we were unfamiliar with, English painter and printmaker Freda Tremlett (1909-1997), four engravings of whose we are showing here. They were originally cut in the 1930s and were reprinted as an insert in Exeter City Museum research officer Hal Bishop’s article “Freda Tremlett, the Ruskin School, and Farrago” published in Matrix 20, Winter 2000, pp. 202-215. Unlike Thomas W. Nason, who we learned about for the first time in the last couple of weeks, there are some good reasons we have not encountered Tremlett’s work before.

Tremlett learned wood engraving from John Nash and Eric Ravilious at the Ruskin School of Drawing from 1928-1932, and showed with members of the Society of Wood Engravers in the early 1930s, and may also have been a member, although there is some dispute about that. This time from 1930-1935 appears to be her only period of artistic output in wood engraving, after which “her post-war engraved work amounted to little more than designs for cards and labels,” although she remained active as a watercolorist. Bishop writes:

As an artist, the circumstances of illness, gender, family, and the war certainly conspired to prevent Freda realising her potential; one senses that a talent which had briefly and dramatically flowered slowly and simply withered.

The engravings shown here are:

Fishing, 1931 Breakfast Table, 1931 Interior, 1930 Sinodun Hills, 1931

Matrix 20 was printed in an edition of 825 copies by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in England, and is a donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

View more posts from Matrix.

View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.

Wood Engraving Wednesday

JOAN ELLIS

Former Exeter Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) curator Hal Bishop introduced us once again to a wood engraver we are unfamiliar with, English artist Joan Ellis (1904-1989). It may not be surprising that we were ignorant of Ellis’s work. Bishop writes:

It seems extraordinary that an engraver of exceptional talent should be lost for over half a century, but this was the fate of Eleanor Joan Ellis; between 1924 and 1934 she produced around forty wood-engravings, most of astonishingly high quality in creativity, composition, and execution. But between 1934 and 1994 she largely disappeared from the history of wood-engraving, unnoticed by art historians, other engravers, and most collectors.

The engravings shown here were printed from the original blocks as an insert for Bishop’s article “Joan Ellis: a Lost Engraver from the Underwood School,” published in Matrix 17, Winter 1997, pp. 41-52. Ellis studied at Leon Underwood’s progressive Brook Green School of Art from 1923 to 1925. Her classmates were a virtual who’s who of artists and wood engravers of the time, including Henry Moore, Gertrude Hermes, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Nora Unwin, and Mary Groom. Bishop concludes:

It may have taken over sixty years but the critical acclaim which greeted her work when it was gathered together for the first time in 1997 (for a retrospective exhibition at RAMM) will ensure that she will be overlooked no longer.

Matrix 17 was printed in an edition of 770 copies by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in England, and is a donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

View more posts from Matrix.

View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.

Wood Engraving Wednesday

This week we present some very rich wood engravings by English artist, educator, and wood engraver Ronald Salmond. Salmond spent the bulk of career as a teacher, serving as art master at Preston Manor School, Middlesex, from 1939-1975, and really did not begin actively making engravings until after his retirement when he was in his sixties. Salmond wrote that he studied

the engravings of John and Paul Nash, Clifford Webb, [and] John Farleigh. . . . It was Clifford Webb’s formalised treatment of trees, buildings and water that gave me a new insight into wood-engraving, whole I greatly admired the freshness and ease with which Eric Ravilious handled his tools, and the wonderful simplicity of his later work.

The engravings shown here were printed as an insert for Hal Bishop’s article “Ronald Salmond - and Old Master,” in Matrix 28, Summer 2009, pp. 33-37, which was printed in an edition of 700 copies. Of the first print shown here, Burford Bridge, Bishop writes, 

Wood Engraving Wednesday

Once again, we’ve come across another wood engraver we are unfamiliar with. This time it is British printmaker and sculptor Rachel Reckitt (1908-1995). Reckitt had a very long career, exhibiting 23 engravings with the Society of Wood Engravers from 1933 to 1994. Hal Bishop, former curator at the Exeter City Museum, remarks that Reckitt “probably had a greater creative span at the block than any other wood-engraver” of the 20th century.

Reckitt witnessed the Blitz of London from September 1940 to May 1941, making many drawings of the devastation and later engraving a few of them. Only five of Reckitt’s wartime engravings are known, and we show four of them here. These engravings were reprinted as an insert to Hal Bishop’s article “Rachel Reckitt: Letters from the Blitz” in Matrix 18, Winter 1998, pp. 58-71. The first image, N. F. S., was printed on the dust jacket of the magazine. Bishop writes:

In Rachel’s work it is these ripped-open buildings that are the main focus: slab-like walls cut-away to reveal the intimate interior and the incongruity of such exposure. The stress is on monumentality, while the juxtaposition of household effects, personal possessions and building rubble creates a surrealism which is entirely uncontrived.

Matrix 18 was printed in an edition of 745 copies by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in England, and is a donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

View more posts from Matrix.

View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.

We’re Back! And So Is Delaney’s Dead Partner, Uh-Oh!

The Weird returns with our 4th episode arc: Who Is Sarah Waterson? and we hope you love it. We’re trying so hard to be spooky, you guys. Also Funny TikTok Lady Shelby Taylor is there. For spookiness.

Bishop commits to being a Better Man, Delaney commits to continuing to be exactly the same, and Rudy really would prefer not to be here. Listen everywhere there are podcasts and also right here! Now! Do it!