The Harbour – Brittany 1932 |
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Original woodcut, printed in colours.
Signed, titled and numbered in pencil.
S 257 x 321 mm; I 234 x 300 mm
SOLD
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Original Kenneth Broad woodcut.
The artist’s number ‘1’ proof. Outstanding impression with excellent fresh colours from the only edition of 150 signed and numbered proofs.
One of Kenneth Broad’s finest colour woodcuts, The Harbour – Brittany is one of a small group of woodcuts depicting northern France which Kenneth Broad made in the early 1930’s. There are echoes of his earlier works in this busy scene but The Harbour – Brittany shows a technical proficiency which Kenneth Broad had acquired over the intervening decade of colour printmaking – it stands out as one of his best original prints.
The famous Bond Street dealers P. & D. Colnaghi exhibited this colour woodcut at their London galleries in 1932.
The accomplished colour woodcuts of Kenneth Broad record daily life in and around London and parts of northern France during the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Kenneth Stephen Broad was born at Stamford Brook in west London and went on to train at the Westminster School of Art. Like the outstanding etcher William Walcot, Kenneth Broad became a London based architect by profession, whose passion outside the rigid framework of draftsmanship was original printmaking – a field of art in which he was particularly gifted. He exhibited together with William Giles and Ethel Kirkpatrick as a member of The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society at the Royal Academy in London and was an early member of the Colour Woodcut Society, becoming its president in the mid-1930’s.
Kenneth Broad’s earliest Royal Academy exhibits date from around 1922 and by the early 1930’s his colour woodcuts were being exhibited and handled by the famous dealers P. & D. Colnaghi in London’s Bond Street. In 1926 he exhibited his colour woodcut of “A Sussex Farm” at the 7th International Printmakers Exhibition in Los Angeles. Despite declared editions of 150 impressions each, Broad’s colour woodcuts are now comparatively scarce. After his death, all of Kenneth Broad’s woodcut blocks were destroyed by his son, as stipulated in his will.
On simile Japan paper, with margins as issued. Generally very good original condition. Image surface excellent. |
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