#patrick randle

Wood Engraving Wednesday

PETER HOLLAND

This engraving of Magnolias by English artist Peter Holland (1915-2004), printed from the original block, is from 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, compiled and introduced by collector Nigel Hamway, edited by English wood engraver Peter Lawrence, and printed in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers. 

Holland himself never exhibited or sold a wood engraving in his life. He was an architect by profession who worked for the Ministry of Works. He taught himself wood engraving in his spare time, producing over 80 finely executed, closely observed images, mainly of the natural world. He was deeply inspired by his friendships with master engravers John Farleigh and Monica Poole. Holland was also the father of the editor of 2020 Vision Nigel Hamway's oldest friend, and inspired Hamway to begin his collection of wood engravings. Hamway included this print in the book as an homage to his mentor and because it is Holland's own homage to the work of Farleigh and Poole. Peter Holland's son Paul writes:

My father continued to engrave until late in his life and loved going to the shop of T N Lawrence in Bleeding Heart Yard to buy blocks. He was a prolific sketcher and sought inspiration for his engravings from his drawings, as well as the cottage and its beautiful garden where he and his wife Mavis lived for over fifty years.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

SARAH VAN NIEKERK

English artist Sarah Van Niekerk (1934 - 2018) was an award-winning Illustrator and wood engraver, a member of the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE), and the Society's chair, 1995-1998. This print, Rams, was printed from the original block in 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, printed in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers. Unfortunately, Van Niekerk died during the planning of the book and her daughter Jess wrote the text for mother's entry and helped select the block to be printed.

Sarah Van Niekerk attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1951-1954) where she studied with wood engraver and sculptor Gertrude Hermes who greatly influenced her work. She continued her education at the Slade School (1955-1956) and much later taught wood engraving at the Royal Academy of Art (1976-1986) and the City and Guilds Art School (1979-1998), and for many years was a tutor at West Dean College. Besides being a member of SWE, she was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and a Royal West of England Academician.

View another post with work by Sarah Van Niekerk.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

ANNE DESMET

English printmaker Anne Desmet (b. 1964) is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE) and the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE), and is only the third wood engraver elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in its entire history. This engraving, Brooklyn Bridge: New Day (2015) pays homage to one of her major influences, British artist Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949) and is printed from the original block in 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, printed in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers. Of her wood engravings, Desmet writes:

Many of my engravings are in evolving series to suggest time, change, metamorphosis and evolution. My Brooklyn Bridge (2015) series of seven prints charts nights and days of snowy weather I experienced in New York in 2014. The bridge's complex engineering structure and viewing angle with a vanishing-point perspective reflect my appreciation of Wadsworth's emphatic compositions. . . . I offer . . . Brooklyn Bridge: New Day . . . in homage to Wadsworth. Wordsworth described 'gradually being able to evolve something of printmaking . . . which in my opinion is very suitable for an expression of form and structure' . . . . I too find print techniques admirably well-suited to express 'form and structure' and, in particular, to architectural themes . . . which have preoccupied me these last three decades.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

HOWARD PHIPPS

This wood engraving of Eggardon Hill in Dorset, England by British artist Howard Phipps (b. 1954) was produced in 2019 for the publication 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, printed in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers. In the book, Phipps identifies Edgar Degas, John Nash, and Eric Ravilious as strong influences. Phipps himself started off as a painter in the 1970s, making only occasional prints. His development as an engraver coincided with the revival of the Society of Wood Engravers in the 1980s. About this print, he writes:

I was interested in the ancient signs of humanity apparent in this landscape, and I like to use light to reveal the underlying sculpture of the striking hill forms, where chalk trackways draw the eye into or around deep combes.

Phipps was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales and was raised in Cheltenham, England. He studied Fine Art at Gloucestershire College of Art in the early 1970s and taught in Plymouth for a while before settling in Salisbury in 1980. He was elected Royal West of England Academy (RWA) Academician in 1979 and a member of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1985.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

MONICA POOLE & GERI WADDINGTON

For our showcase of women wood engravers, this week we present two prints by master British wood engravers Monica Poole (1921-2003) and Geri Waddington (b. 1953). Although Waddington, chair of the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) from 2014-2017, only developed a virtual friendship with the master engraver and fellow SWE member Poole in the last few years her life, Poole’s influence on Waddington’s work and career has been profound. Waddington writes:

[Poole’s] support was invaluable, both in business and artistic matters. This was the woman who had kept wood engraving alive in the lean post-war years, and her commitment to the medium was clearly evident. . . .

After Monica died, I was able to buy her small Albion press, which I continue to use regularly. It still gives me a frisson to follow in her footsteps. . . . and I have now doubt that her legacy will continue to inspire future generations.

Shown here are Monica Poole’s 1988 print After the Storm (top) and Geri Waddington’s 2019 print New Hedge. Both were printed from the original blocks for 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, published in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

GEORGE TUTE and JOHN FARLEIGH

English painter and wood engraver George Tute (b. 1933) discusses one of his significant influences in the work of fellow English wood engraver John Farleigh (1900-1965) in 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, printed in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers.

As part of his discussion, Tute pairs his own large print Dandelion Field (1962, top) with Farleigh’s even larger 1956 wood engraving Park Gate (bottom). Of these two prints, Tute writes:

Wood Engraving Wednesday

ANDY ENGLISH & REYNOLDS STONE

The celebrated English wood engraver Reynolds Stone (1909-1979) had a powerful influence on succeeding generations of wood engravers. One of those engravers is English artist Andy English (b. 1956). Like Reynolds, English came to wood engarviing as an outsider (Reynolds was trained as a historian, English as a geologist). English writes:

When I think of a Reynolds Stone engraving, it is likely to be an image of the edge of woodland, perhaps with a small stream or waterfall and probably set in Dorset. It would be simply but effectively engraved with great concentration; the work of someone who knows trees and water. There is likely to be a well-placed bird or mammal in the image, or perhaps a figure making their way through the wood.

Shown here are English’s print Charmouth Beach (2019, top) and Stone’s Apostate Part VI (1926). Both are printed in 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, published in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers. The block for Stone’s print was lent by his son, the designer Humphrey Stone, who published a memoir of his father in 2019. For his own contribution to this book, English writes:

I chose another Dorset setting which acknowledged my childhood interest and academic study of rocks and fossils. I thought of Reynolds Stone when I engraved the textures of sea and stone. . . . Most of all, I thought of Reynolds Stone when I placed a bird -- a greater black-backed gull -- carefully within my image.

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A Wood-Engraved Feathursday

English wood engraver Ian Stephens (b. 1940) has always been drawn to the natural world as the subject for his compositions. He grew up in rural Buckinghamshire, accompanying his father on his farming activities, and “through my times with him I too became deeply appreciative of [the natural world]” which continues “to dominate my interests and the themes I choose to depict in my engravings.”

So, it’s not surprising that one of his major influences is the major founder of modern wood engraving Thomas Bewick (1753-1828), whose own depiction of nature is also deeply rooted in a lived understanding of the British landscape. Stephens discusses his connection to Bewick in 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, printed in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers.

To demonstrate the aesthetic affiliations, Stephens juxtaposes Bewick’s engraving of a Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris), from the 1826 printing of Bewick’s famous A History of British Birds, with Stephens’s own wood engravings of a Swale Dipper (2019) and a Dipper on the river Conwy (2004). Both dipper depictions are of the White-throated Dipper (Cinclus cinclus).

While Stephens’s prints were made from the original wood blocks, Bewick’s Fieldfare had to be printed from a magnesium plate made from a print. So, we decided to show the actual wood-engraved Fieldfare from our own copy of the 1826 edition of British Birds (top, another gift from our friend Jerry Buff) to compare with the magnesium impression just below.

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