The week-end on ebay

 

A round-up of the prints to be found for sale on ebay this week-end has to begin with Helen Hyde's Butterflies made in 1908. To start with I need to say the image above is not the one for sale. At under £200 you will get a print that has almost certainly been laid and down and is also cockled. On the plus side you will get the original frame complete with the label of the fashionable Glasgow dealer Andrew Duthie on the back. This is the only time Hyde has appeared on Modern Printmakers. It is a very well-made print and by the time she had made it, she had studied with block-makers in Tokyo. But it isn't all that cheap considering the condition and you should be able to find a good proof for not a lot more.

Nor will you get a bargain on Ethel Kirkpagtrick's Brixham trawlers. What you will get is an unframed proof in good condition, with the colours looking bright and fresh. Here we have Kirkpatrick at her insouciant best and from her classic period before the first war. As she has recently been featured in a small exhibition at the V&A, you will need to be just as insouciant when you pay. Kirkpatrick has a sense of movement and magic rare in British colour woodcut artists. Only Allen Seaby is her equal but unlike Seaby, she never made a duff print.

Robert Howey has never been cheap either but I thought the U.S. dealer was pushing it on this one. The impression Howey makes is usually good. After the storm is also well-designed. But so far as I am concerned, Howey doesn't follow through. He was really a commercial artist, with a small business in Hartlepool, and used  to use printer's ink so his images tend to look flat on his thin buff paper. Howey was one of the first English artists to make use of lino in the 1920s and provided a bridgehead in the north-east for the 'Exhibition of British Linocuts' tours in the late twenties. All in all, though, if you want sea and boats, stay with the expert.

I am a fan of the Swiss artist Alfred Peter and own a few of his bookplates and would have considered this one myself if it had not been for the condition of the paper. Peter remains good value if you like small prints. He was a fine craftsman and here you have his own New Year print made in 1911. I suspect the photo does not do the meticulous printing and compact design much justice.

Last but not least we have this fine etching of a faun by Hans Frank. At about £25 this looks like a bargain compared to the late colour woodcuts currently for sale in Germany and Austria at almost £500. I know many readers like to have the prints they buy framed on the wall. I keep most of mine loose in portfolios. This means I have am happy to have small prints at negligible prices wrapped in tissue and invariably looking great! Good artists understand the preciousness and intimacy found in small works. It is what gives so many British colour woodcuts their special value though when it comes to very small prints, the Swiss, the Germans and the Austrians are even more appealing than British wood-engravings and a fraction of the price.