Newgill

Last year, I spent some quality time, including a visit to Sussex, chasing the hare called Eric Gill, otherwise the chap whose first big commission was the stations of the cross in Westminster Cathedral. A chase wound up at reference 1. Then this year, BH happens across a linocut by one Winfred Gill in our holiday cottage here in Holne.

Cottage version one

Cottage version two

Is it one of Eric's daughters we ask ourselves? A few seconds later and Wikipedia tells us at reference 2 that this is not the case. Right medium, roughly the right dates, but the wrong family. But clearly an interesting figure from the arty and intellectual world of England of the first half of the twentieth century. Almost certainly known to, if not known by, my arty uncle.

Bodleian version

Curiously, our version of this linocut is not quite the same as the one which wound up in the Bodleian, although a bit of photoshop - or something of that sort - would, I think, quite easily get you from the latter to the former. Alternatively, perhaps Winifred was fond of this particular pot and cut a new version every year, using the same bunch of plastic snowdrops? We will never know.

PS: later: or perhaps we will. At the Bodleian they talk of the linocut being hand tinted, so perhaps the artist knocks out fifty prints, then tints each one by hand, so producing 50 unique works of art. Far more money in unique works of art than there is in prints. And with tinting a linocut being a much quicker and cheaper process than doing the thing from scratch: painting by numbers job which you can give to the boy, while you get on with more important stuff.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/gill.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Gill.