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 Bishopâs article âFreda Tremlett, the Ruskin School, and Farragoâ 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 Tremlettâs 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 âher post-war engraved work amounted to little more than designs for cards and labels,â 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.
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