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Happy All Hallows' Eve

Démétrius Emmanuel Galanis
[The World]
Woodcut 
London : Cresset Press, 1931. 
Image 248 x 188 mm

From a series of illustrations for John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regain'd which were published by the Cresset Press. Milton’s work was the last, and arguably greatest act of the publishing house, which operated between the years of 1927 and 1931 under the direction of Dennis M. Cohen and A. I. Myers. The prints stand as some of the most ornate illustrations of Miltonic verse; they are printed on vellum, and were created by Galanis, who at the time was close to the apex of his careers popularity. The printing was done by Bernard H. Newdigate whilst the title page and initials were designed by Anna Simons.

Démétrius Emmanuel Galanis (1879-1966) was a Greek illustrator, printmaker, and designer. He studied under Nikiforos Lytras at the Higher School of Fine Arts in Athens and later under Fernand Cormon at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Galanis earned a number of important commissions as an illustrator for private press books in France and elsewhere during the first few decades of the twentieth-century.

Revelations catalogue

There are still some absolutely awe inspiring pieces available for purchase from our epic Revelations catalogue.

To download the online catalogue please click here

[The Creation of Light] 
John Martin
Mezzotint
Published by Septimus Prowett, 23 Old Bond Street 1824. Printed by Chatfield & Coleman. 
Image 192 x 278 mm, Plate 251 x 352 mm

In 1824, John Martin was contracted by the London publisher Septimus Prowett to produce mezzotint illustrations to John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost. The project carried significant risk for Prowett was not a noted publisher, nor Martin a seasoned printmaker. Subjects from Milton's great work had also been portrayed by several renowned predecessors such as William Hogarth, William Blake, Richard Westall, and Henry Fuseli who had gone so far as to open a gallery dedicated to Milton in 1799. The series, however, was a critical and commerical triumph, and stands as one of the central achievements of Martin's oeuvre. In emphasising the preternatural vistas of the text, Martin's engravings of Hell, Paradise and Pandemonium infused Milton's verse with a boldness and grandeur previously unrealised.

The Creation of Light illustrates 'Book VII, line 339' of Paradise Lost, wherein the angel Raphael relates to Adam: 'And the almighty spake: Let there be lights/High in the expanse of Heaven to divide/The day from night.' In Martin's print, God is shown dividing night from day as his image is seen in the sky above the sea.

John Martin (1789-1854) was an English painter, illustrator and mezzotint engraver. He achieved huge popular acclaim with his historical landscape paintings which featured melodramatic scenes of apocalyptic events taken from the Bible and other mythological sources. Influenced by the work of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) as well as Theodore Gericault (1791–1824), Eugene Delacroix (1798–1863) and Paul Delaroche (1797–1856), his paintings are characterised by dramatic lighting and vast architectural settings. Most of his pictures were reproduced in the form of engravings, and book engravings, from which he derived his fortune. Despite his popularity, Martin's work was spurned by the critics, notably John Ruskin, and he was not elected to the Royal Academy. His fame declined rapidly after his death, although three of his best known works of religious art toured Britain and America in the 1870s: The Great Day of his Wrath (1853, Tate, London), The Last Judgment (1853, Tate) and The Plains of Heaven (1851-3, Tate). A great contributor to English landscape painting, Martin was a key influence on Thomas Cole (1801-48), one of the founding members of the Hudson River School.

CW 65; Campbell, Visionary Printmaker, p. 81.

Condition: Very strong impression. Trimmed outside of platemark. 

Print du Jour

Our favourite print today is this stunning kacho-e woodblock by Japanese artist Ohara Koson [Shoson; Hoson] (1877-1945).

Defining the representations of birds or flowers in Japanese art, kacho-e images can be some of the most compositionally sublime of the various genres within Japanese printmaking.  These stunning graphic prints have a timeless quality and seem as contemporary today as they did during the last century.

We stock a range of original kacho-e woodblock prints with prices starting at just £35 alongside an ever expanding collection of  Japanese prints from as early as c. 1810.

Please visit our website to browse through the varying sections.

Crow and Cherry Blossoms
Ohara Koson [Shoson; Hoson] (1877-1945)
Woodblock
n.d. c. 1910

Seal: Artist's seal Koson
Publisher: Daikokuya.

Refrence: Newland, Amy R.; Jan Perrée & Robert Schaap, "Crows, cranes & camellias: The Natural World of Ohara Koson", Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2001, ISBN 90-74822-38-x, - pg. 70. Pl.46.

Ohara Koson [Shoson; Hoson] (1877-1945) was born in Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture in the North of Japan with the given name Ohara Matao. He had studied painting as a student of Suzuki Koson. He is best known for his kacho-e or wildlife prints, of which his designs were produced in prolific numbers for a primarily Western market and range from images of haunting realism to humorous depictions of animals at play.

Condition: Excellent. Full sheet with margins

Eric Ravilious High Street Prints

Sanders are pleased to report the recent acquisition of several rare prints from Eric Ravilious' and J. M. Richard’s High Street, published in London by Country Life Books.

This unusual publication is a book of descriptive accounts of high street shops and businesses trading during the 1930's. Each chapter was accompanied by  a full page lithographic illustration by Eric Ravilious, many of which we currently have listed on our website.  The now much sought after prints are evocative of everyday life in early 20th century London.

Pharmaceutical Chemist
Eric Ravilious
Chromolithograph
Curwen Press, 1938
Image 210 x 140 mm
From J. M. Richard's and Eric Ravilious' High Street, Country Life Books.

Eric Ravilious, 1903-1942. English painter, wood-engraver and designer. He was born in Acton and was educated at Eastbourne School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art (1922–1925), where he was taught by Paul Nash and became close friends with Edward Bawden. He began teaching part-time at Eastbourne School of Art in 1925 and later that year was elected to the Society of Wood Engravers, having been proposed by Paul Nash. After leaving the RCA, he became a master of wood engraving and illustrated numerous books and produced patterned papers for the Curwen Press. In the 1930s he began painting larger compositions in a wider range of colour, and this led him to use lithography to illustrate High Street (1938). Later as a War Artist he produced a series of lithographs of submarines.

Exhibition Now Open!

Our latest exhibition, Revelations, The Apocalyptic print in Nineteentth -century Britain is now on display in the gallery.

Please click here to download the catalogue.










The Last Man
Alfred Martin after John Martin

Mezzotint
R. Ackermann, 96 Strand, London, 1836.
Image 110 x 179 mm, Plate 171 x 252 mm

John Martin's The Last Man is based on a short poem by Thomas Campbell first published in 1823. The poem, which bears the same name, narrates a vision of the end of the world as witnessed by a sole survivor who watches the sun set for the final time. Envisioning the apocalypse was a growing literary trend, and Martin created a succession of images which responded to this. He exhibited An Ideal Design of the Last Man with the Society of British Painters in 1826; the watercolour of which this mezzotint is based on in 1833; and a further watercolour of the same subject at the Royal Academy in 1839. This print is exceedingly rare.

Alfred Martin (1835 - 1844; fl.) was an English printmaker; and son of the painter John Martin. He produced many engravings after his father's designs, including those for Thomas Hawkins's The Wars of Jehovah, Heaven, Earth and Hell, published in 1844.

John Martin (1789-1854) was an English painter, illustrator and mezzotint engraver. He achieved huge popular acclaim with his historical landscape paintings which featured melodramatic scenes of apocalyptic events taken from the Bible and other mythological sources. Influenced by the work of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) as well as Theodore Gericault (1791-1824), Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) and Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), his paintings are characterised by dramatic lighting and vast architectural settings. Most of his pictures were reproduced in the form of engravings, and book engravings, from which he derived his fortune. Despite his popularity, Martin's work was spurned by the critics, notably John Ruskin, and he was not elected to the Royal Academy. His fame declined rapidly after his death, although three of his best known works of religious art toured Britain and America in the 1870s: The Great Day of his Wrath (1853, Tate, London), The Last Judgment (1853, Tate) and The Plains of Heaven (1851-3, Tate). A great contributor to English landscape painting, Martin was a key influence on Thomas Cole (1801-48), one of the founding members of the Hudson River School. 

Campbell, Visionary Printmaker, p. 161. 

Condition: Very strong impression. Light surface dirt to sheet; otherwise excellent.

Exhibition Opens Tomorrow!

Revelations

The Apocalyptic print in Nineteenth-century Britain

This October Sanders of Oxford presents a collection of spectacular and visionary prints. Featuring depictions of the final days, extreme natural events, divine wrath and human disater by John Martin, Gustave Doré, Francis Danby &c.

All welcome at the Private View: Thursday 18th October, 2012. 5:30 - 7:30pm.

The exhibition continues until Thursday 1st November, 2012.

An accompanying online catalogue will be available to download from our website shortly.

New Work from Local Printmakers

We have recently updated our stock of work by Contemporary Oxford Printmakers.

Check out our website to view a carefully selected range of work from local printmakers, such as Morna Rhys, Susan Wheeler (left), Jonathan Brett and Ben Pritchard.




Along the Thames
Susan Wheeler
Linocut
2011
Image and Plate 290 x 655 mm

Signed and inscribed in pencil.
Artists Proof

Welcome Back!

As a new term begins Sanders would like to send a warm welcome, or a welcome back, to all freshers and to those returning to the city after a well deserved break.

If your student digs are looking a little drab, and your bored of what the annual poster sale at the union has on offer, then we have a huge range of prints and maps in the gallery that could brighten things up a bit.

A piece of history doesn't have to cost the earth and with sale prints beggining at less than £1 anyone can own and enjoy a genuine antique without breaking the bank.

Pop into the gallery to have a rummage through our sale items or browse the website via section to see the range of stock on offer.




Scholars at a Lecture
after William Hogarth
Etching
c.1790
Image 201 x 169 mm, Plate 215 x 177 mm

'Datur Vacuum' ('Leisure time is given for..') is a pun on 'vacuum', carried out in the expressions of the various auditors. These are scholars at Oxford, wearing square topped, round cloth and felt hats. Alfred D.Godley (Oxford in theEighteenth Century, London 1908, p.164) explains that 'all undergraduates on the foundation of Colleges and all graduates except Doctors of Law, Medicine and Music, wear square trencher caps like our own, but in the case of undergraduates without the tuft of "apex", which has now become a tassel. Commoners and servitors have a round cap with a limp crown; the same kind of headgear, but with a higher crown and more elaborately pleated, is worn by Doctors of Law, Medicine and Music, also by "nobelmen", ...' The reader is supposed to be William Fisher (d.1761) of Jesus College, Oxford, registrar of the University.

Impressions of Oxford

Catalogue of Artist’s prints & drawings of the University city, 1880 -1950.

Since print making began in England, there has been a market for views of Oxford, whether it be separately published views and vue d’optiques or the copious amount of prints produced for the histories and guide books. The first prints of Oxford were made by John Bereblock in 1566 for a small pamphlet for Queen Elizabeth’s visit. Since these initial prints Oxford has been a popular subject. There was a demand within the town and around the world for views to be used in alamanacks, postcards and books, and as printmaking was the only means of reproducing images for publication prior to the invention of the camera, the amount of printed views of Oxford is vast. Depictions of the city created before the invention of the camera were for the large part representational rather than artistic expressions. They had to be representational in order to epitomise and convey the city’s architectural highlight.

As a group of prints, this collection illustrates the progressive shift from “straight” and popular views of Oxford to dominance of the artist’s print. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century we enter a prolific and varied period of English printmaking. Whilst artist are making prints for financial gain, the introduction of the camera and various photomechanical processes freed printmakers from their association with making only reproductive views. There was a resurgence of artists experimenting with different printing methods including woodcut and linocut. The end result is that printmaking in various styles came to be seen as an accredited way of making art. The prints were limited in number, handcrafted or a combination, focusing not on making an exact view but imbuing it with a personal style.

To download the catalogue click here