Simpson.
[Rider, 36 St. Martins Court W.C. n.d., c.1935.]
Woodcut, printed area 180 x 130mm, 7 x 5¼", titled and signed by the artist in pencil, limited edition of 175. Time stained.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), one of three caricature portraits of the literary giants of the age, published as 'Three Living Lions', the others being G.K.Chesterton and H.G. Wells. Joseph Simpson (1879 - 1939), painter and etcher of portraits and sporting subjects, born in Carlisle and studied art at Glasgow School of Art. He designed covers for Edinburgh publishers and was a prolific designer of bookplates. In 1918 he became an official war artist for the RAF and was stationed in France. Simpson was already forty-five when he took up etching in 1925, at the height of the boom period for the medium. His first twenty or so plates were etched with a gramophone needle and printed by the artist himself on the small press lent to him by a local Carlisle printing firm. His first exhibition of etchings took place in Glasgow at Wishart Brown in March 1926, for which his friend Frank Brangwyn wrote the catalogue introduction.
[Ref: 8932]  £260.00