Wood Engraving Wednesday
CLIFFORD WEBB
This week we present the four wood engravings by the English artist, illustrator, writer, and wood engraver Clifford Webb (1894–1972) in the Golden Cockerel Press 1936-1943 bibliography, Pertelote, A Sequel to Chanticleer, printed in London by the Press’s co-owners at the time, Christopher Sandford and Owen Rutter.
Clifford Webb was a favored illustrator for Golden Cockerel publications, illustrating eight books for the press. After serving in the British army during WWI, Webb studied at the Westminster School of Art from 1919 to 1922, after which he taught for a few years at Central School of Art in Birmingham. He established a reputation as one of the great wood engravers of the 20th century and developed a distinctive engraving style. Simon Brett (1943-2024), one of the great British wood engravers of the following generation, noted in his 2019 book on the life and work of Clifford Webb, that Webb "re-thought how things could be depicted on an engraved surface. He broke boundaries!”
The first image is one of four engravings Webb produced for the 1939 Golden Cockerel Press edition of The Country of the Blind by H. G. Wells. The next is one of six engravings for the 1937 edition of Ana the Runner by Patrick Miller, and the last two images are from the 1938 edition of The White Llama by Ventura García-Calderón, a translation of Calderón's La venganza del cóndor, with eight engravings by Webb.
Our copy of Pertelote is another donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).
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