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Leonard Griffiths Brammer

1906-1994

[An Extensive view of one of the Five Towns] by Leonard Griffiths Brammer
 

[An Extensive view of one of the Five Towns]  

  Original etching.
Signed in pencil.
S 328 x 458 mm; P & I 246 x 363 mm
SOLD
 
Original etching by Leonard Brammer.

Very fine signed proof impression of this impressive etching. One of Brammer’s two largest etched plates.

Leonard Griffiths Brammer’s passion for the industrial landscape of his native Burslem and the Five Towns, coupled with his knowledge of the working potteries gives his etchings a powerful realism apparent in this extensive view of one of the Five Towns. This etching accords with Brammer’s own recollections of the area, written for the Journal of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers: “To me the Five Towns landscape of those days, though grim and starkly foreboding, was full of beauty created by the rich and lovely forms of oven and kiln, the texture of tile and brick, the pattern of roofs and buildings, and the peculiar effect of light and shadow over the Potteries at that time”.

The so-called ‘Five Towns’ were the towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Hanley, Stoke-upon-Trent, and Longton which, between them, formed the heart of the Staffordshire potteries. There was, in fact, a sixth town named Fenton but when the author Arnold Bennett coined the phrase ‘the five towns’ for his novels, he omitted Fenton, as he preferred the sound of the phrase ‘five towns’ rather than ‘six towns’. In 1910 all six towns were unwillingly united to form one city calles Stoke-on-Trent.

The density of the weave of etched lines in L.G. Brammer's works requires fastidious attention in the printing of his plates – this particular impression, with its remarkable clarity despite the extraordinary level of detail, attests to the care which Brammer exercised when printing his plates.

On cream wove paper laid on its original backing board, with full margins. Generally very fine original condition. Image surface excellent.