#simon brett

Wood Engraving Wednesday

SIMON BRETT

This week we bring you three wood engravings with details by the incomparable British wood engraver Simon Brett (b. 1943), illustrating poems by English writer Neville Braybrooke (1923-2001) published as Four Poems for Christmas in 1986 by Brett's own Paulinus Press in Marlborough, Wiltshire, in an edition of 250 copies signed by the poet and engraver. Our copy, another gift from the estate of our late friend Dennis Bayuzick, is one of 50 copies that includes a suite of signed engraving proofs.

In the book itself, two wood engravings are printed opposite the respective poems they illustrate and these, together with an additional one, are again printed across the center spread (shown here). Primarily a painter, Brett learned wood engraving from the noted English artist Clifford Webb (1894-1972) (view our posts on the engravings of Clifford Webb) in the early 1960s but did not turn to engraving as his primary medium until the early 1970s. Today Simon Brett is considered one of Britain's premier wood engravers.

This edition of Four Poems for Christmas was printed for the Paulinus Press by Jonathan Stephenson of the The Rocket Press on Zerkall mould-made paper using Baskerville type.

View other posts on wood engravings by Simon Brett.

View other books from the collection of Dennis Bayuzick.

Wood Engraving Wednesday

SIMON BRETT & DERRICK HARRIS

All artists have other artists they look to as influences, and among the incomparable English wood engraver Simon Brett’s influences is English illustrator and wood engraver Derrick Harris (1919–1960). Brett’s English wood-engraving lineage is strong as Harris was a student of John Farleigh (1900-1965), who in turn was trained by Noel Rooke (1881–1953), who learned his skills from R. John Beedham (1879–1975), who acquired his trade as an apprentice to the venerable wood engraving firm, Hare & Company, and was among the last people in Britain to serve an apprenticeship as a professional reproductive wood-engraver.

The two engravings shown here -- Brett’s engraved title page for the Folio Society’s edition of Henry Fielding’s Amelia (1995) and Harris’s frontispiece to the Folio Society’s edition of Fielding’s Tom Jones (1959) -- are from 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. Brett cites Harris as one of the influences who freed him from the severe discipline of Brett’s own teacher Clifford Webb. Of Harris, Brett writes:

Wood Engraving Wednesday

SIMON BRETT

This week we showcase two wood engravings (with one in two colors) by the incomparable English illustrator and wood engraver Simon Brett. The first two are the same engraving printed in black and mustard yellow from Claire Van Vliet’s 1976 Janus Press printing in Vermont of Thom Gunn’s poetry collection The Missed Beat, printed from the original block on Okawara paper for Anthony Baker’s Gruffyground Press in an edition of 120 copies. 

The last engraving is from British poet Peter Levi’s Music of Dark Tones AMDG [Ad maiorem Dei gloriam] printed in Marlborough, Wiltshire, at Michael Mitchell’s Libanus Press for Brett’s own Paulinus Press in an edition of 200 copies signed by the poet and artist.

Simon Brett was a student of the equally incomparable wood engraver Clifford Webb. Brett taught at Marlborough College Art School from 1971-1989, operated the Paulinus Press from 1981-1988, served as chair of the now over-100-years-old Society of Wood Engravers from 1986-1992, and has written widely on the history and practice of wood-engraving. A 50-year retrospective of Brett’s wood-engravings was held at Bankside Gallery, London, Art Jericho, Oxford, and Holburne Museum, Bath, 2013-14.

Typography Tuesday

This week we present some interesting typographic approaches from Gilbert Beale’s Cadenza Press, as represented in Michael Taylor’s article “Singing an Unconcerned Song: Gilbert Beale and the Cadenza Press” in Matrix 19, Winter 1999. Beale operated his press from various locations in England from 1966 to 1995. Beale was deeply interested in spelling reform and developed his own orthographic system based on English Orthography. His system required that new matrices be made for thirteen special characters to conform to 12- and 14-point Bembo. He called his system Advanced English Orthography, and its most complete use can be seen in his multi-volume, hand-printed, 1991-95 publication Homo Intelligens, a sample page and detail of which are shown here. To break up the visual monotony, Beale commissioned a series of one-inch-square wood-engraved capital letters from the master English wood engraver Simon Brett, samples of which are also displayed here.

Beale completed the text for his master work on Advanced English Orthography in 1996, which unfortunately was never printed as Beale died in 1997. Michael Taylor writes:

Was Homo Intelligens simply a folie de grandeur? Some will find it too idiosyncratic, personal and inaccessible. . . . But I can’t help admiring its craggy monumentality and rejoicing in the human qualities which Gilbert Beale brought to its making -- ingenuity, unconventionality, determination and seriousness of intent. We need our private presses to be something like Gilbert Beale’s Cadenza Press: embarking on individualistic, impossible projects, going their own out-of-step way when all else is uniform and orderly; idealistic, singing an unconcerned song.

Our copies of Matrix, published by John and Rosalind Randle at their Whittington Press, are another donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

A review of Cast In Order of Disappearance by Simon Brett – 260505 I was looking for something light, fluffy and amusing when I decided to dip my toes into the world of Charles Price. The first of what Simon Brett would turn into a twenty book series and originally published in 1975, for the main part it met my expectations. I vaguely recall an adaptation on the radio with Bill Nighy playing the…

The latest book in Simon Brett’s Mrs Pargeter series is out today, and as I read it when I was on holiday the other week, I have a bonus review for you today! Mrs Pargeter’s Past is the tenth book featuring the widow of Mr Pargeter, who definitely wasn’t one of the biggest crooks in Essex. This time out Mrs P is coming to the assistance of one of her husband’s former associates who has got…