The Impressed Image
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Mortimer Menpes (Australian 1860-1938)
A Painter and prolific etcher, he came to England and studied under Whistler. They fell out rather publicly
in 1887, having both influenced each others work significantly. He travelled widely, recording
life in Holland, France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, India, Burma, China, Japan and Mexico. Several books recount
these travels and are lavishly illustrated with reproductions of his paintings and prints. He printed his own
plates and was a great experimenter, producing colour versions of some etchings, often on his own 'Menpes'
watermarked paper. His portraits are often very fine, and the more rapid and sketchily done topographical work
captures the vitality of many of the scenes very well. His more studied and heavily worked subjects tend to be
a bit stolid. He seems to have been forgotten by the 'etching boom' of the 1920's as he is hardly mentioned in
Print Collectors Quarterly, Print Prices Current and Fine Prints of the Year, in spite of an output of seven
hundred plates. His earliest work dates from 1880 and it is hard to find evidence of activity after about 1914.
Although the early portraits bear edition sizes of 25 and the Venice set 70, it seems likely
that much of his work was not formally editioned. The large batches sold at Sothebeys in 1995 and Bonhams in 1998
consisted of many multiple copies, often on differing papers with different inking and the remnants of editioned
batches that had remained unsold. These three are fairly typical. The titles are presumptive - he had a helpful
knack of inscribing different proofs of the same plate with alternative names. I don't think this really is
Mrs Ronald Coleman - an assumed title based on the fact it is in style like another print of her by Menpes. I think
it's the same as the lass in Sothebys Cat.#29 (Barbara Monkton-Hoff?). Either way it's lovely. The colour drypoint
is another smaller version of a larger monochrome drypoint and is reversed. Most of Menpes colour etchings seem to
use an existing plate as a base, then several other drypoint plates for various colours. He refers cryptically
to his 'rediscovery' of a method of colour etching, but no-one knows what he was really up to.
Mrs Ronald Colman (?)
Drypoint Date ? Edition ?
On FJ Head Menpes laid paper. 200x250mm.
The Andalusian Maid
Drypoint on 1802 paper. 200x150mm
Proof before the plate trimmed on right to remove table.
A Breton Interior.
Colour Drypoint. 190x153mm.
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