We are ever so pleased to write that we are now printing The Train by Claughton Pellew. His work so clearly fits with the other images we publish.

Perhaps best known as a wood engraver, Pellew did some wonderful watercolour work. The Train manages to canvas two kinds of ability: an accuracy of depiction which Pellew most often so skilfully managed in his wood engraving work, but also the skill to infuse his images with a romantic intensity akin to the type of intensity Ravilious managed to capture in his watercolours.

The Train is Pellew’s masterpiece. It is a twilight view of the embankment at Overstand in North East Norfolk, a view Pellew could see from the window of the house he occupied. A rare depiction in the artist’s oeuve of modern life, it is nevertheless an elegiac capturing of a peaceful scene, and one wherein the night train, with its row of lit-up windows, disturbs neither the shepherd nor his sheep.

The Train. Claughton Pellew. Price £220.00

We are also delighted to say that we are finally now printing the Cyril Power sporting images – four of them, including the beautiful, almost botanical, The Eight.

The Eight. Cyril Power. Price £175.00

And very much from the same Grosvenor School as Power, we have three new images from Ethel Spowers. The narrative content will appeal particularly to children here: children on swings, children protected by their parents, but it also appeals to the memories we all have of such times and such activities.

Swings. Ethel Spowers. Price £75.00

The De La Warr Pavilion was designed by German émigré architect Erich Mendelsohn and his British partner Serge Chermayeff. Situated on the south coast of England it is one of the finest examples of Modernist architecture in the world. The Pavilion was commissioned as a cultural and entertainments centre by the 9^th Earl De la Warr, and opened by the future King George V1 in 1935. After the Second World War the building fell slowly into disrepair, but in the 1990’s a major programme of restoration and redevelopment began, and today, seventy-five years after its opening, the De La Warr Pavilion is again thriving as a vibrant cultural and entertainments centre.

At its inception in 1935, Serge Chermayeff invited the artist Edward Wadsworth (A.R.A 1889 – 1949 – see Artists) to design a mural for the De La Warr Pavilion. Wadsworth based his design on a 1929 painting Shells and Cones – a highly stylised version of a sea chart of the area surrounding the Pavilion.

Wadsworth, at the time, was contracted by the Cunard Line to decorate what would become their flagship the Queen Mary. So after creating a Study for the mural Wadsworth employed the artist Charles Howard to implement his designs at the Pavilion. The mural was painted onto the east wall of the Pavilion restaurant (now gallery 1), but due to the action of light on the plaster wall the mural deteriorated. Eventually it was copied onto canvas – not by Wadsworth or Howard, but by an employee of the Pavilion – and it can now be seen at the entrance to the De La Warr Restaurant.

The original Study hangs in a private room at the De La Warr Pavilion. Whilst it is not on public view, it is, upon request, lent to museums and galleries.

To celebrate its seventy-fifth year in 2010 the Pavilion decided to print a Limited Edition Print (1/200) of the Study. They approached the Bookroom Art Press to oversee the process. This we did from start to finish: from the arrangement of copyrights and specialist photography to the proofing and final printing of the image. We mounted the print in archival mount board and framed it in our English oak frame.

You can purchase the print directly from the Pavilion DLWP Shop - shop@dlwp.com or 01424 229 111

The Bookroom Art Press can undertake similar projects. Please do contact us to discuss – we are always pleased to help.

This year promises to be one full of changes and many new prints on offer. The first of these are prints by two artists, Winifred Nicholson and Alfred Wallis. As always there are connections between these and our existing artists (Ravilious/Bawden/Nash etc), both in biographical terms – they knew each other, but also to a certain extent in their artistic influences – particularly Wallis on Winifred Nicholson.

Winifred Nicholson – Penstemons. Limited Edition (1/500). (RRP) £190.00

Winifred Nicholson – Cineraria & Cyclamen. Limited Edition (1/500). (RRP) £190.00

Nicholson first exhibited these works (above) in April 1927, in a shared exhibition with Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood and the potter William Staite Murray at the Beaux Arts Gallery. An anonymous Times reviewer wrote of the exhibition: ‘Mrs. Nicholson is the only one of the three painters who strikes one as being perfectly ingenuous…….there is an April spirit in her work….In her flower paintings the escape from realism into a new reality, as lovely as that of Nature and charged with human feeling, is complete.

Alfred Wallis – Three Sailing Boats in a Line. Limited Edition (1/750). Price £130.00

Oil on paper. There is a spare beauty to this print. These are small luggers of a kind Wallis knew well. After his journeys crossing the Atlantic on larger brigantines and schooners Wallis found employment on these inshore fishermen’s boats. They sailed from Mounts Bay in Cornwall in search of seasonal staples – mackerel in the summer, and pilchards and herring in the winter.

Alfred Wallis – Lighthouse with Trawler and Fish. Limited Edition (1/750). Price £145.00

Oil on board. This print contains many of the aspects for which Wallis is now famous: a lighthouse, a fishing boat, the hint of a pier and – central in importance – the fish. Wallis gave disproportionate sizes to the things in his paintings he found most interesting. Here the fish are most important. Wallis once remarked to a critic writing about his paintings that when he worked as a fisherman on the luggers sailing from Mounts Bay, ‘each boat of the fleet had a soul, a beautiful soul shaped like a fish’. (Albert Rowe, The Boy and the Painter, Studio International, 1968; p29)

About Winifred Nicholson and Alfred Wallis

Winifred Nicholson was the first wife of Ben Nicholson, the renowned British artist best known as a pioneer of abstract art and son of William Nicholson, the creator of the Velveteen Rabbit images we already publish (see Prints – William Nicholson). The two prints we offer by Winifred Nicholson are representative of her work: she painted flowers on a ledge or windowsill; but hers are more than simple flower depictions – she captured, in terms of content, something quintessential, but colour, luminosity and the play of light also characterize her work and in this, too, these prints are representative.

Winifred Nicholson knew Alfred Wallis – the second artist whose work we now publish. The two met in St. Ives, Cornwall, where she, Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood went on holiday and to work in the 1930’s. Winifred was fascinated by Wallis’s direct or ‘primitive’ approach, and indeed he influenced her, not only by this approach, but also in terms of content – she collected his boat paintings and depicted a Wallis drawing in one of hers (Autumn Flowers on Mantelpiece, c 1932).

Regular customers will know that we now sell all of our prints bespoke framed. (See About Us on the site). This has been very successful and, of course, you can also purchase the new Winifred Nicholson and Alfred Wallis prints framed.

As always Trade Enquiries are welcome – see also About Us on the site for more on these.

We’ll be adding many more images as the year progresses, so please do keep visiting.

Before mentioning our newly published Limited Edition Prints we should mention the launch of our newly designed website. We’ve made navigation much easier and added a lot more information on the processes used; we’ve included illustrations, too, on the hand-numbering and embossing that we use on our prints, and on the framing options now available.

New Prints:

We are very pleased to have secured the exclusive rights to print the Eric Ravilious High Street images – all 24 of them. These lithographs were initially created by Ravilious for a book on shops, and published by Country Life Books just before the war in 1938. Very few of the books were actually printed, the war intervened, and the lithographic plates were completely destroyed in the Blitz. The images themselves are exquisite. John Piper (previewing the work in ‘Signature’, 1937) wrote of them:

‘Ravilious is a particularly English artist….there is probably no-one else who could have made these records at once so faithfully and imaginatively. There is about them the suggestion that you are looking in at a series of gay, old-fashioned parties from the matter-of-fact street in the present. They are records of a passing beauty, but they are full of present-day experience. And they are faithful enough to look like tuck-shops full of sherbert, liquorice and lollipops – which, after all, is one of the chief appeals of the attractive shop’.

The High Street prints are sold with or without a frame: if you purchase without a frame, the print comes to you wrapped with an archival ph neutral mount, cost £65.00. If you purchase with a frame – either the elegant matt-black or English oak frame – the cost is £113.00. And there are no additional postal charges for either framed or unframed prints sent to you.

Eric Ravilious High Street images:

Knife Grinder	Public House	Naturalist
Letter Makers	Undertaker	Cheesemonger
Coach Builder	Baker And Confectioner	Fire Engineer
Model Ships	Saddlers And Harness Makers	Submarine Engineer
Fireworks	Oyster Bar	Theatrical Properties
Pharmaceutical Chemist	Hams	Second Hand Furniture
Restaurant And Grill Room	Amusement Arcade	Letter Maker
Wedding Cakes	Family Butcher	Hardware

We’ve included all the newly published and printed images – the Underwood and Flight images, the new Tschudi images, and the new ‘Velveteen Rabbit’ William Nicholson children’s images. (I say ‘children’s images’, but as with Ardizzone’s ‘Tim and the Brave Sea Captain’ prints, these images are already being purchased by as many adults for themselves as for their children).

Along with new prints by new artists we are now also selling the long anticipated Ravilious ‘High Street’ images – the full 24. These were initially created by Ravilious for a book on shops and published by Country Life Books in 1938, just before the war. Very few of the books were actually printed, the war intervened, and the lithographic plates were destroyed in the Blitz. It is a pleasure and a privilege, therefore, to be printing these exquisite lithographs.

We now also sell our prints bespoke framed. Our frames – a matt black wood frame and an elegant English oak (see About Us) are carefully chosen and the framing itself is done to the highest of standards to ensure that the print is both protected and presented at its best.

We’ll be adding many more images as the year progresses so please do keep visiting.

Darion Goodwin