Classic British black-and-white prints (plus another Seaby) from the Cirencester hoard

 

By now, readers may have drawn the same conclusion as myself about the current trend we are seeing. It looks very much like the British prints now coming up for sale were collected during the great revival of interest during the 1980s and come from estates of deceased persons. Nothing else can explain a lot of seventeen wood-engravings including work by artists as diverse as George Soper (below), John Farleigh, Bernard Rice and Reynolds Stone. Another artist whose work was never inexpensive even then is Stanley Anderson. Dominic Winter have his fine copper engraving The hedger from 1934 (above) in the sale.

You have got to like this kind of thing. And I do (and always have) but could never have brought myself to paying the price for an Anderson. Instead I contented myself with finding good prints at modest prices (as you could do) and only handing over larger amounts of cash when I had to. From the Cirencester hoard, it looks as though other collectors were doing much the same thing. How else would you end up with seventeen prints in a lot? Take it from me, we are living through good times and this treasure trove of prints by commendable artists is proof of that. Soper was never in the top league, but he has the correct amount of period glamour that frankly is hard to resist. OK, I sold the one print I had by him years ago at Phillips. But Phillips is rather grand today and if I took it back to them now, they would turn it down. From Yorkshire to Gloucestershire to Kent, the action has moved to the provinces.

The presence of Richard Shirley Smith's very fine Rhinoceros beetle from 1978 (above) says everything about the level of discrimination of both artists and their collectors back then. People had had enough of the dreary semi-abstraction of so much British post-war art. Let's face it, the British had never been all that good at modern and by the fifties and sixties it had all turned into a horror story of artists dependent on the art school system. Craftsmanship of the kind found very obviously in Shirley Smith was out the window. 

Yet again, you may well pay less for Anne Desmet's superb Rotunda series than the buyer in the 1980s. Her work was not cheap at the time and rightly so. She was one of the best. The two images I have here show only half of the work for sale, but you get the idea. This means that anyone with a taste for the classical past or Italy or sheer bravura craftsmanship is going to be tempted. I know I am. I was recently saying to a friend who is a professional librarian and bibliophile, I thought now was a good time to buy second-hand books. More than that, it is a good time to buy second or third-hand prints. People look at me with my map spread out on the big table at Caffe Nero in Carrington St in Nottingham as if I am Martin Frobisher or Vasco da Gama. The very idea of anyone looking at a map let alone owning one is beyond anyone under forty. Likewise, old prints and old books. 

Although I said the other day there were no Seabys from the great years before the war in the Cirencester hoard, I was wrong. Half-hidden in a lot that includes a Horace Brodsky linocut, is Seaby's Lapwings. I remember a friend buying this from Garton & Cooke and not being smitten. Nonetheless, it is from his best period and was certainly made in the first decade of the last century because it was exhibited at the first exhibitions held by the Graver Printers in 1910. It looks great simply because as always it was printed to such a very high standard. Its period value is considerable as well assuming you can forgive Seaby the Arts and Crafts mannerisms. Look also how easily he sits alongside the monochrome prints here. The mood with him is often dawn or twilight when colours are uncertain as opposed to secure. He said much the same thing himself in a 1909 essay he contributed to.

Another artist who was always in the lead on standards is Gertrude Hermes. There are a number of other wood-engravings by artists who adopted a brilliant modern manner, including John Farleigh and Eileen Mayo, but I thought Hermes' Borage stood out. It would be untrue to say I did not enjoy the style. The downside is Hermes does not always do her plants many favours. Style always gets the better of botany and if you like borage (as I do) you will miss the luxuriance of the plant. Now this could never be said of Allen Seaby and his birds. A.W.S. was an artist who both loved and knew his subject. For a moderniser as stylish as Hermes, subject gave way to sensibility and the lack of life in the work gets to be a drag.