The Impressed Image
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Stanley Anderson (Bristol 1884 - 1966 Aylesbury
Son of an engraver, he was initially apprenticed to his fathers business at 15 as a heraldic engraver for seven years.
He studied art initially in Bristol an his spare time, then the Royal College of Art under Frank Short (1909-11)
having won the British Institutes Engraving Scholarship and later Goldsmiths College where he subsequently taught.
He was for many years a member of the engraving faculty at the British School in Rome and was elected RE in 1923 and
RA in 1941. Despite this he maintained he was essentially self taught through study in the British Museum and
National Gallery and preferred to work there or privately in his room. Martin Hardie describes him as plodding, tenacious,
industrious and ambitious(!)
His output from 1908-1922 is almost all pure etching of varied portraiture and topgraphical views of London and
it's environs that tend to depict people going about their everyday tasks. From 1923 he moved more to Drypoint and a
cleaner more precise line with visits to the continent. 1929 sees him switch almost exclusively to Engraving. His subjects
gradually concentrate more on portraits of people going about their daily lives, culminating in his great series of
engravings of British Crafts, which have left a priceless record of traditional Arts and Crafts that have all but died out
in Britain.
All his Drypoints of 1927-29 are superb pieces of printmaking and to my eye have both the clean careful composition
of his later engravings plus the richness of tone that only drypoint can give. His engravings just following this
period are often beautifully sympathetic portraits of the humble ordinary man. I personally find his later
engravings a bit too cold and clinical although they exhibit great technical virtuosity.
As far as I can ascertain he ceased printmaking in the mid 1940's. Hardies catalogue in PCQ finishes at 1933. The Ashmolean
Museum in Oxford have a complete set of his 160 or so prints. Next time I visit I will copy their complete list.
Cafe de Papes, Avignon
Drypoint 1929
Edition of 85. MH 125
192x242mm
Toledo Cathedral
Drypoint 1929
Edition of 80. MH 124
245x302mm
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