A reader tipped me me off today about a group of seven colour linocuts by the British artist, Katherine Jowett, coming up for sale at Dominic Winter Auctioneers in Gloucestershire this coming Friday. It includes Lanterns in the wind (above) the most original of all her prints and the complementary Street scene (below). Unfortunately, in order to buy these two striking prints, you will need to buy all seven. They come with a estimate of £400 - £600, considerably less than they will go for. In common with much of her printed work they are all either tipped onto light card and laid down on it.
Not a great deal is known about Jowett and, in particular, how she came to make colour linocuts. This has meant there has been some conjecture about her reasons for going to China. The facts as I know them go like this. She left Britain in 1904 to become a teacher at a Methodist school in China. Six years later she married Hardy Jowett who was himself a missionary and the couple subsequently had two children.
By 1931, she had made a sufficient number of colour linocuts to exhibit alongside Bertha Lum. Not only was Lum resident in Pekin at the time, the Scottish colour print artist and writer, Anna Hotchkis, was also there. It is always possible that this was how Jowett was introduced to lino. She used an oil based ink and heavy card and had little in common with her linocut contemporaries in Britain.
Hardy died in 1936, leaving her alone with the two children and a deteriorating political situation. The following year, Pekin fell to the invading Japanese Army. This did nor deter the young American dealer and collector, Robert Muller, from visiting her in 1940 and buying work. He made it only just in time. Following the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Japan in December, 1941, she was interned and remained in camps until September, 1945, when she returned to Britain.
The hammer price of the prints was £800.
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