Sir Frank William Brangwyn RA RWS RBA (1867–1956) -1924 Etching Boats In Venice

Description

A crisp etching with plate tone showing a boat filled with workmen pushing off from a jetty in Venice. The first strike of this print was documented in 1924. This print has been signed in pencil below the plate line by the artist, likely dating it to the original 1924 first strike.

The print has been presented in a gilt effect frame with glazing. There is a gallery label at the reverse.

Condition

The condition is typical for a picture of this age including minor discolouration. There is spotting that at first glance might look like foxing but under closer inspection, this is texture within the plate. The original plate lines are still in tact. The frame has a small loss to the lower left corner and general scuffing at all sides.

Size

Size: 24.6 x 27.3cm

Plate Height: 25cm

Plate Width: 27.5cm

Frame Size: 35.2 x 36.8cm

Artist Biography

Sir Frank William Brangwyn RA RWS RBA (12 May 1867 – 11 June 1956) was an Welsh artist, painter, watercolourist, printmaker, illustrator, and designer.

Brangwyn was an artistic jack-of-all-trades. As well as paintings and drawings, he produced designs for stained glass, furniture, ceramics, table glassware, buildings and interiors, was a lithographer and woodcutter and was a book illustrator. It has been estimated that during his lifetime Brangwyn produced over 12,000 works. His mural commissions would cover over 22,000 sq ft (2,000 m2) of canvas, he painted over 1,000 oils, over 660 mixed media works (watercolours, gouache), over 500 etchings, about 400 wood-engravings and woodcuts, 280 lithographs, 40 architectural and interior designs, 230 designs for items of furniture and 20 stained glass panels and windows.

Brangwyn received some artistic training, probably from his father, and later from Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and in the workshops of William Morris, but he was largely an autodidact without a formal artistic education. When, at the age of seventeen, one of his paintings was accepted at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, he was strengthened in his conviction to become an artist. Initially, he painted traditional subjects about the sea and life on the seas. His 1890 canvas, Funeral At Sea won a medal of the third class at the 1891 Paris Salon. The murals for which Brangwyn was famous, and during his lifetime he was very famous indeed, were brightly coloured and crowded with details of plants and animals, although they became flatter and less flamboyant later in his life.