"A graduate of Leon Underwood's Brook Green School of Art in London, Gertrude Hermes (1901-83) trained as a painter and sculptor. Hermes and her husband, Blair Hughes-Stanton, who she met at Brook Green, went on to become leading lights in the early twentieth-century's wood-engraving revival. Although their marriage was short-lived, their exuberant visual inventions for Bunyan;s 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and T.E. Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' Brought them critical acclaim. Much has been written about Hermes' career as a wood engraver. In contrast, her contribution as a sculptor has been somewhat eclipsed--until now. 'The Sculpture of Gertrude Hermes' presents for the first time a full analysis of the artist's entire sculptural oeuvre. Along with a comprehensive catalogue of Hermes' sculpture, Jane Hill provides a full account of the artist's life in the context of her career as a sculptor. What results is a picture of a pioneering spirit who created busts and heads, functional designs, decorative work and reliefs that are dynamic and unpredictable. Featuring over 140 images, 'The Sculpture of Gertrude Hermes' is a groundbreaking study of an artist so long associated with one art form. This book redresses the imbalance and creates a new and fresh perspective on an important female artist of the twentieth century."--Publisher's website.

Gertrude Hermes RA (1901-1983) was well-known for the range and diversity of her work. She was a sculptor as well as a wood-engraver, and she also produced colour prints, both lino and wood-cuts. This book, however, concentrates on her work as a wood-engraver, reproducing in a generous format virtually the whole of her output. In the opinion of Simon Brett, who is one of the contributors to this volume (the other is Bryan Robertson), 'her prints stand in the history of British modernism alongside the paintings of Nicholson and the sculpture of Moore and Hepworth'.The artist's daughter has edited this volume, and in her biographical notes and careful cataloguing of the works she explains much about Gertrude Hermes that needs to be known for a fuller understanding of the engravings. But in one sense the illustrations can be enjoyed without further commentary - for their presence, scale and size, and sheer romance. The volume offers a visual feast drawn from an artist who preserved a marvelous balance between warmth, imagination and vitality on the one hand, and sparseness and austerity on the other.

Covers the entire history of wood engraving, including every major artist of the genre Accompanies the Scene through Wood: A Century of Wood Engraving exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, from 28 March to 12 July 2020 The Ashmolean Museum houses one of the most extensive collections of wood engravings in the world. The collection effectively began with the gift in 1964, by Arthur Mitchell, of over 3,000 prints, including a large group of wood engravings. During the 1980s and 1990s, it expanded remarkably with acquisitions of large groups of prints, often as gifts from the artists, resulting in a succession of monographic exhibitions on some of the most important wood engravers. They included John Farleigh (1986), John Buckland Wright (1990), Clare Leighton (1992), Monica Poole (1993) and Anne Desmet (1998). A key point in this period of expansion was the acquisition of a comprehensive body of work by Gertrude Hermes and Blair Hughes-Stanton in 1995 from the artists' family, which resulted in a memorable exhibition organized by Katharine Eustace. More recently, the Ashmolean has formed a close partnership with the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) and has been keeping the collection up to date by acquiring work by members, both at the Society's annual exhibition and privately. This exhibition catalog covers the entire history of wood engraving, including every major artist of the genre.