Emery Walker (1851 – 1933) after Edmund Hort New (1871 – 1931)
Wadham College, Oxford
Photogravure
27 x 41 cm
New produced a series of pen-and-ink drawings of Oxford colleges, of which this is one. They paid homage to the artist David Loggan, often using the same aerial viewpoint as him, but showing the colleges two hundred years later. Emery Walker turned New’s drawings into photoengravings in the early 20th century. Probably no more than two hundred prints of each engraving were produced, and the plates were destroyed in the blitz.
Edmund Hort New was an English artist. He was a member of the Birmingham Group of Arts and Crafts-associated painters and craftsmen, and is known as a leading illustrator of his period. He specialised in pen and ink drawings of rural and urban landscapes, old buildings and their interiors, architectural features, and also designed bookplates. He provided illustrations for the English Illustrated Magazine and was commissioned by Bodley Head publishers to illustrate critically acclaimed editions of books, such as Walton’s The Compleat Angler. In 1895, New met William Morris and began designing for the Kelmscott Press. He also taught drawing to T E Lawrence. In 1905, he began his drawings of the Oxford colleges, and spent the rest of his life working on the (sadly unfinished) project. In 1921 he exhibited at the first exhibition of the Society of Graphic Art.
Sir Emery Walker FSA was an English engraver, photographer, and printer. He was very involved with the Arts and Crafts movement, a Master of the Art Workers’ Guild, President of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, a Trustee of the Wallace Collection, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He was also a close friend of William Morris. Walker’s expertise and his collection of 16th-century typefaces inspired Morris to create the Kelmscott Press. In 1910, Walker photographed the notable Rice portrait of Jane Austen. He was knighted in 1930.
Condition: very good; modern printing.
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