Bush House, from Strand 1923 |
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Original etching.
Signed, titled and inscribed in ink.
Ref: Hardie 101; Meyrick 152
S 293 x 351 mm; P 186 x 246 mm; I 181 x 246 mm
SOLD
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Original Stanley Anderson etching.
One of only 15 impressions printed from this plate.
Excellent proof impression with carefully wiped plate tone. Although Anderson’s inscription on this proof states an edition of 50 impressions, the full intended edition of this plate was never printed and in the leading catalogue raisonné (published in PCQ in 1933) Martin Hardie records that the actual edition was only 15 impressions in total. The most comprehensive collection of Stanley Anderson’s printed works, the Arthur Mitchell collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, does not contain an impression of this etching and there was no impression of this subject to be found in Anderson’s family collection when it began to be dispersed around twenty years ago.
Stanley Anderson’s impressive depiction of Bush House in London is the first to have been made by a leading printmaker of this impressive building. The construction of Bush House was a staggeringly expensive project undertaken by the Americans and intended to symbolise Anglo-American friendship; in 1929, when still only just over half complete, it was declared “the most expensive building in the world” having already cost around £2,000,000 – an immense sum at that time. Stanley Anderson’s etching shows the building in 1923, when only the centre block had been completed and before any part of the building had been officially opened. Bush House provided a topical architectural subject for a number of printmakers of the period, the other striking depiction being that by William Larkins in 1927.
We have not seen any other impression of this etching for sale over the past 25 years.
On cream laid paper, watermarked F J Head & Co, with full margins and deckle edge. Very fine original condition aside from some slight creasing in the margins. Image surface excellent. |
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