Some classic British colour woodcuts on ebay

At last something has turned up on British ebay that I am sure is the kind of thing collectors will be looking for. I mean one of the two images Allen Seaby made of magpies in the classic bird print years roughly between 1903 and 1910 when he turned out masterpieces like Heron, Bittern and Ptarmigan. This is not up to that standard (but then few British colour woodcuts are) and does not have the same impact as his other magpie print. The paper is wrinkled at the edge which probably means it isn't laid down - one of my bug bears.

The print was probably made in the first five years of his career as a colour woodcut artist and (but not necessarily printed then) and before he had the additional responsibility of the post of professor at Reading and before he embarked on his book Birds of the sea and air. I never thought Seaby regained the freshness, creativity and distinction of this period. The blacks are superb, especially in Heron, and the keyblock never dominates.

By comparison with Arthur Rigden Read's Night wind, which maintained current prices for that artist and sold for £1,1170 only last night, this is by far the better print. Seaby had the advantage of studying woodblock with Frank Morley Fletcher while Read could only work from his book Woodblock printing and although Seaby suffered from Fletcher's rigorous teaching in the early stages and struggled with the Japanese method, by the time he made this print he had adapted what he had learned from Fletcher and developed his distinctive manner.

Another little masterpiece but of  different kind coming up is John Hall Thorpe's Forget-me-nots from 1922. For all the easy appeal of Hall Thorpe's prints, his economy of means in this particular one is startling. Hall Thorpe was quite clear that these prints were intended for home decoration and he was careful to introduce a variety of colours and give buyers the chance to adapt the prints to their colour schemes and although he said they were suitable for both a London flat or a country cottage, it seems plain he was providing pictures for people who had both.

Whether we should consider them as works of art is another thing. Hall Thorpe took a pragmatic approach to making prints - not surprising if you consider he had no success until he began exhibiting prints in 1919 at the age of forty. He had originally worked as an engraver on Sydney newspapers where all the images were printed at the press and he always had his colour woodcuts printed at a commercial press. No one has ever said where (and he certainly didn't) but I have a good idea, I think. Printing by hand would have meant two things: the prints would not have looked so polished and it would have entailed a lot of work because large numbers of prints were made.

Also up for sale is The Chinese vase (which I think goes tomorrow) and The caravan. Personally, I don't think either have the appeal of the classic series of flower prints. The Chinese vase has an oriental-looking key-block. What is striking about Forget-me-nots is the way he pulled it off without using a key-block and instead arranged contrasting shapes and colours to define the flowers. The black backgrounds were also an important part of the effect, another reason why I don't think The Chinese vase comes off as well.

                                                                                                   Annex Galleries

Finally, there is Rigden Read's Strangers at the gate, back on after failing to sell with a starting bid of £300. I can't say I am surprised. If you are going to give a woodcut like this the remorseless hard sell, you have to know what you are doing. It is one of the many prints Read produced using a limited palette, an approach that went against the basic tenets of the colour print movement. The founding fathers all put colour first so how did Read come up with dowdy prints like Strangers at the gate? The answer is he read about C16th chiaroscuro woodcuts in the introduction to Woodblock printing and took it from there. The sweep, which was the first one in 1924, was the best, but after that almost all of them were less accomplished, mainly because the thinking behind them was conventional.

I need to add that none of the images you see here are the ones currently for sale on ebay.