I have been surprised on visits to Leominster recently how many antiques shops and centres you find there are. The overall effect is to make the place look tatty and temporary. In fact someone who lives nearby went as far as to describe Leominster as 'a hole'. Readers from outside of the UK will not be aware that this has become standard practice here. This means Evesham is a hole and so is Hereford while Gloucester is merely 'depressing'. I could go on. All I can say is such people have never been anywhere near a real hole.
Suffice to say, you would not find colour woodcuts by S.G Boxsius coming up for sale in a proper hole. Nor would Boxsius himself have gone anywhere near one. He spent the last days of his life in 1940 visiting Tenbury Wells just over the boundary in Worcestershire. How these four prints ended up in Herefordshire is another matter. They were all handed out as Christmas presents to employees and clients of British Belting and Asbestos from 1930 onwards. I thought I had covered this subject fairly well but as I have had an enquiry from a reader about the Leominster prints, I thought it was as well to try and clear up any remaining confusion.
The term 'the four seasons' came into use quite a few years ago and I can assure you all that the idea did exist but that Boxsius only produced Spring, Autumn and Winter. Summer was the work of John Hall Thorpe and was the only one of the four to be machine-printed (presumably by the art printers Bemrose of Derby). All three of the seasonal prints by Boxsius were printed by hand on fine paper and unlike the Hall Thorpe were only signed in the block and never in pencil below the image. Nevertheless, Autumn remains one of his very best and most rewarding pieces of work and is well worth buying. Winter also found Boxsius on top of his form with the scudding clouds being some of his most remarkable effects. As the notes on the back say they suggest further snow to come and emphasise how much atmospheric effects were a concern in his work.
Spring and Winter come with the original labels supplied by B, B & A attached to the back. My hunch is the notes are the work of William Giles. For all the elegance of the phrases he uses, Giles was both a knowledgeable and perceptive writer and worth attending to. The labels suggest the work was framed by the recipients back the thirties. All the images here are the ones on the auction house website. Its is always preferable to buy the prints unframed. Now and then, they even come up in their original calendar mounts though I only the containing Valencia one by Arthur Rigden Read.
This means there were at least three artists working on commission for B, B & A during the thirties, with Boxsius being the artist they work with most and most successfully. The fourth print in the sale is Early morning. Like the Read and Hall Thorpe images, this one was machine printed but is a better and more professional image than the other two. There were two further prints, both with titles straight from Giles. Evening afterglow is the least common of any of the series. In fact, the only one I have ever come across is the proof that I now own. I have certainly never seen it since. Mid-day (not to be confused with Noon-day) was sold quite a long time ago by Hilary Chapman and is again pretty rare.
One reason for buying any of the series is the fact that they are all woodcuts. Lino could be unsuitable for long print runs and wood may also have been easier for professional printers to work with. The first ones are the best but as you know almost anything by Boxsius is worth buying. It is a pity Minster decided to put all four in one lot. Presumably they expect the trade to buy while collectors will already have one or two of these themselves (as I do) and will regretfully have to let the others pass. I would have certainly considered bidding for Spring and it is going to be interesting to see what the lot fetches and who buys it.
Lot 371 comes up at Minster Auctions, Leominster, Herefordshire on 1st November, 2023.
No comments:
Post a Comment