#artistic influennces

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

HOWARD PHIPPS

This wood engraving of Eggardon Hill in Dorset, England by British artist Howard Phipps (b. 1954) was produced in 2019 for the publication 2020 Vision: Nineteen Wood Engravers, One Collector, and the Artists Who Inspired Them, printed in 2020 by Patrick Randle’s Nomad Letterpress at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 340 copies for the 100th anniversary of the Society of Wood Engravers. In the book, Phipps identifies Edgar Degas, John Nash, and Eric Ravilious as strong influences. Phipps himself started off as a painter in the 1970s, making only occasional prints. His development as an engraver coincided with the revival of the Society of Wood Engravers in the 1980s. About this print, he writes:

I was interested in the ancient signs of humanity apparent in this landscape, and I like to use light to reveal the underlying sculpture of the striking hill forms, where chalk trackways draw the eye into or around deep combes.

Phipps was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales and was raised in Cheltenham, England. He studied Fine Art at Gloucestershire College of Art in the early 1970s and taught in Plymouth for a while before settling in Salisbury in 1980. He was elected Royal West of England Academy (RWA) Academician in 1979 and a member of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1985.

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