Monday 20 July 2015

Steven Hutchins update


                                                             
                  

Quite a long time ago there was a post about the British woodcut artist, Steven Hutchins.  I believe he made only three colour woodcuts, all of them in the early 1980s. I think the Venetian scene must be the third one. Also included is his masterly Eggleston Abbey. Both different in style, you see that Hutchins wasn't a hard-and-fast traditionalist but was capable of accomplished work with and without the keyblock. In fact, the Venice image may even be a linocut.

                                                                       


I still find it odd that there seems to be no trace of Hutchins nowadays. But even stranger is the fact that someone with such printmaking ability could have disappeared leaving no more than three fine prints to his name.

7 comments:

  1. I love that Hiroshige-style sky in Eggleston Abbey.

    Klaus

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    1. I agree. As he was a dealer in Japanese woodblocks, he knew them well. But it's the rather outrageous combination of Hiroshige and British topography that I like so much.

      I shall replace it with a better image later tonight.

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  2. Thanks, Clive, and yes, it's very St Andrews, isn't it?

    I have a post lined up for you so stay tuned.

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  3. It does seem odd that he went to the trouble to teach himself color woodcut printmaking, then stopped. I very much like Eggleston Abbey as well. The inclusion of the strip of dark indigo sky was an interesting choice.

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  4. 'Eggleston Abbey' was the one he offered to me but at £70 about 1984 it was more expensive than many of the colour woodcuts of the twenties and thirties. I just assume Hutchins didn't sell enough of them to make it worth his while persevering. He told me he learned how to make them from Frank Morley Fletcher's 'Woodblock Printing'.

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  5. Besides the sky, the Japanese influence is also present in Hutchins' stylized monogram.

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  6. Well, yes, but it was all very knowing and a bit tongue-in-cheek and far more English than it was ever Japanese. That was very much an eighties thing.

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