Wood Engraving Wednesday
SIMON BRETT
This week we bring you three wood engravings with details by the incomparable British wood engraver Simon Brett (b. 1943), illustrating poems by English writer Neville Braybrooke (1923-2001) published as Four Poems for Christmas in 1986 by Brett's own Paulinus Press in Marlborough, Wiltshire, in an edition of 250 copies signed by the poet and engraver. Our copy, another gift from the estate of our late friend Dennis Bayuzick, is one of 50 copies that includes a suite of signed engraving proofs.
In the book itself, two wood engravings are printed opposite the respective poems they illustrate and these, together with an additional one, are again printed across the center spread (shown here). Primarily a painter, Brett learned wood engraving from the noted English artist Clifford Webb (1894-1972) (view our posts on the engravings of Clifford Webb) in the early 1960s but did not turn to engraving as his primary medium until the early 1970s. Today Simon Brett is considered one of Britain's premier wood engravers.
This edition of Four Poems for Christmas was printed for the Paulinus Press by Jonathan Stephenson of the The Rocket Press on Zerkall mould-made paper using Baskerville type.
View other posts on wood engravings by Simon Brett.
View other books from the collection of Dennis Bayuzick.
View more posts with wood engravings!