Engravings by Eric Gill: A Selection, 1929

Eric Gill

Engravings by Eric Gill: A Selection. Bristol: Douglas Cleverdon, 1929.

Folio (350 x 280mm), no. 46 of 80 copies on Batchelor handmade paper with an extra suite of the engravings on tissue in a portfolio pocket at the rear, top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed, original quarter vellum on black cloth by Wood, bookplate of L.K. Elmhirst, library markings and stamp to title page, binding bumped and worn

"...Obviously an engraving is, in its material nature, simply a thing of light and dark on a surface, and if one had no concern with or interest in anything else, one might say that engraving was simply pattern-making on paper with ink by means of graven lines and printed blocks. But I, alas, can claim no such simplicity; I did not come to this business young enough. For me, art, and this art especially, was always inextricably bound up with the expression of ideas..." (Preface, by Eric Gill)

This collection of 148 engravings on 103 plates, printed from the original blocks or plates, records Gill's work as an engraver over a period of 20 years.

PROVENANCE:

Leonard Knight Elmhirst (1893-1974), bookplate