Liss Llewellyn is delighted to announce The Cutting Edge – Part One: the first in a series of three exhibitions of unique plates and woodblocks by Modern British Artists.

These exhibitions will showcase one of the most significant collections of printing material ever assembled, and offered here for sale for the very first time. This instalment includes the original woodblocks that Eric Ravilious made to illustrate Christopher Marlowe’s Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew in Malta, published by The Golden Hours Press, 1933. Ravilious was a master wood engraver, and these are the two largest and most accomplished blocks by the artist in existence.

The exhibition features work by Gertrude Hermes, who was one of the most imaginative and innovative wood engravers of her generation, and who was described by the novelist Naomi Mitchison as “a magician – or if you like priestess”. Other British printmakers such as Clare Leighton, Eric Gill, Leon Underwood, and Robert Austin make up this selection. There’s also a striking self-portrait in wood by Geoffrey Hamilton Rhoades, who was associated with the Great Bardfield Artists, and whom Henry Tonks famously lavished with these words at the Slade: “You’ve something I haven’t – imagination”.