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32. Douglas Percy Bliss (1900-1984) Gargoyles Spouting
Wood engraving, 1925, 166 x 128 mm. Very fine proof impression on thin, laid japan paper, tipped down at the corners to another sheet of japan, signed and titled in pencil. Bliss was a Scottish painter and print maker and also, though then barely out of art school, the author of A History of Wood Engraving, a volume that received such praise that it overshadowed his own, very real artistic accomplishments. It is still a standard work on the subject. This is one of Bliss’ earliest wood engravings, though it shows total mastery of the medium and a distinctive, personal style. What makes the image bizarre is the treatment of the gargoyles not as functional stone sculptures but as some sort of living creatures brought to life by the storm above them, a conception we have never seen before. Bliss’ early prints are exceedingly rare. Many of them, like this one, were never editioned, and all the surviving impressions and the original blocks were stolen or destroyed during the London Blitz of World War II. Bliss, by the way, served in the infantry in the First World War and in the RAF in the Second. A rare and interesting print by a rare and interesting man. |
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