29. Joseph Simpson
(1879-1939)

James Pryde in a Tall Hat

(click on image to print)
Simpson, James Pryde

James Pryde in a Tall Hat

Etching, 1930, 300 x 213 mm., Fell 65, ex collection: W. Wesley Manning (dedicated). Fine, strong impression with plate tone on laid paper with good margins, signed and dedicated in pencil. Simpson was quite an individual etcher who specialized in portraits and sporting subjects but whose work, at times, did not rise above the ordinary. This is one of his last portraits and quite probably his best print. Pryde, a fellow artist and poster designer, was something of an eccentric and Simpson's portrait gives the viewer something to ponder. The strong, rough technique has often, in the past, been compared with Anders Zorn's but, with the passage of time, that superficial similarity has come to seem no more than coincidental - and not even that similar. If for this print alone, Simpson deserves mention in any survey of the British Etching Revival.