Harry Morley was a British painter, etcher and engraver, known for his classical and mythological compositions. He was born in Leicester, where he attended Alderman Newton's School. At the age of 16 years, he left school to study architecture at Leicester School of Art, under Augustus Spencer and Benjamin Fletcher. In 1900, Morley was awarded a scholarship to study architecture under Professor Beresford Pite at the Royal College of Art (RCA). He won an RCA scholarship in 1903, which enabled him to visit Italy for the first time. Later that year, Morley was articled to Beresford Pite, whose architectural practice was on the RCA campus. At the Royal College, Morley also attended the mural painting department and life classes. He won two further scholarships in 1905 an RCA Architecture Award and another from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), for the study of colour decoration. These awards allowed him to spend long periods in Italy, between 1905 and 1908, where he came to admire early Renaissance painters, such as Pinturicchio, Pietro Perugino, Paolo Uccello and Sandro Botticelli. Now, determined to become a painter himself, he attended the Académie Julian, Académie Colarossi and Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.
In London, in 1911, Morley married Lilias Helen Swain ARCA. A skilful calligrapher and embroiderer, Lilias had studied design at the Royal College of Art under William Lethaby. She was trained in lettering and illumination by Professor Edward Johnston and went on to become his first assistant. She studied embroidery under Grace Christie, whom she assisted after her graduation. Lilias was teaching calligraphy and embroidery at the Royal College, when she became engaged to Harry Morley. Lilias all gave up her artistic career to support Morley in his work. Whenever the opportunity arose, she undertook private commissions in calligraphy and embroidery design. She continued to draw and paint under the name Lester Romley. A quiet feminist from an early age, Lilias shared digs in Chelsea with fellow Royal College of Art student, Sylvia Pankhurst, who like Lilias, was from Manchester. Lilias designed and embroidered for the Pankhursts, a demonstration banner (now lost).
By 1921, Morley had been elected a member of the Art Workers' Guild. He joined the Society of Painters in Tempera, two years later. The ethos and camaraderie of artist groups appealed to him. He was an active member of both organisations. The Society of Painters in Tempera frequently held their meetings in Morley's studio. John D. Batten, the painter-activist, Mary Sargant Florence, Francis Ernest Jackson, Maxwell Armfield and Joseph Southall were among the many that attended. The revival of British interest in tempera painting had begun as early as 1901, with the formation of the Society. By the 1920s, the medium was better understood. However, it was only after the Royal Academy of Arts's ground-breaking “Italian Art exhibition”, at Burlington House, in 1930, that the Academy accepted contemporary tempera paintings in its “Summer Exhibition”. A tempera of Morley's was one of the 36 tempera paintings shown that first year. Morley was considered to be an artist's artist. His pictures proclaim their dependence on the early Italian masters, not only by their oil and tempera technique, but in their visual vocabulary. The artist's strong sense of monumental form and spatial clarity reflected his early training as an architect. Together, with his use of clean lines, academic coolness and detachment, Morley's work is clearly distinguished from the narrative purpose and sentiment of the Pre-Raphaelites. Morley's principal concern was the mythological and biblical figure paintings in oil and tempera that he exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1912. In 1924, his tempera painting, Apollo and Marsyas was purchased for the Tate, under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest.
The 1920s and 1930s, marked for Morley, a period of relative success and public recognition. Despite the collapse of the art market, during the economic depression that followed the 1929 Wall Street Crash, Morley continued to paint, engrave and exhibit. In 1932, he reluctantly accepted a post at St. Martin's School of Art, where for eight years, he taught painting and life drawing, two days a week. Portrait commissions also supplemented his income, during the 1930s. Morley's friend and Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, Sir Walter Westley Russell invited him to attend the Schools, as a visiting teacher to critique students' work. Morley was appointed to the Faculty of Engraving, at the British School at Rome, in 1931. He was elected Associate of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS), in 1927 and a full member, in 1931. He served as RWS Vice President, from 1937 to 1941. Having been nominated for Associate Membership of the Royal Academy of Arts (ARA) since 1921, he was eventually elected ARA in 1936. That same year, he was also elected Master of the Art Workers's Guild. A series of six articles by Morley on the “Theory and Practice of Figure Painting in Oils” appeared in the Artist Magazine, between September 1936 to February 1937. Morley's mythological and classical figure compositions helped establish his reputation and attract critical approval. By the mid 1930s, however, he had begun to experiment with a new approach to landscape painting, influenced in part by his long-standing admiration for the work of Paul Cézanne. Were it not for the disruption caused by World War II, his relocation out of London, his ill-health and early death, it is impossible to tell where this new direction might have led.
The Sacristan, Engraving, Signed, Early 20th Century
By Harry Morley
Located in New Orleans, LA
This image shows a cleric seated in a church sacristy surrounded by religious statues, croziers, various saints, statues and chalices. It is an origina...
Engraving
$650
H 11.5 in W 7.63 in
Mosque of the Sultan Bayazid, Constantinople — Vintage Realism
By Louis Conrad Rosenberg
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Louis Conrad Rosenberg, 'Mosque of the Sultan Bayazid, Constantinople', etching, 1927. Signed in pencil. Initialed and dated in the plate, lower left. A fine, richly-inked impression...
Drypoint
$9,500
H 20 in W 36 in
Interiors I: Family Reunion — A penetrating scene with a hidden homage to Eadwea
By Peter Milton
Located in Middletown, NY
Interiors I: Family Reunion 1984 Resist ground etching and engraving on BFK Rives wove paper, 20 x 36 inches (501 x 913 mm), full margins. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 49/175 in pencil, lower margin. In excellent condition with minor mat tone. A luminous, rich, and well-inked impression of this haunting image, with astonishing detail and depth. Framed handsomely under museum grade glass with archival materials in a solid wood frame with silver finish. [Milton 107] Intended to be a stand alone image in its inception, Family Reunion ended up spawning seven additional images, and became a sort of Primo Pensiero in the sprawling, masterpiece suite now known as Interiors. The suite took eight years to complete, and consists of works of varying format, psychological intensity, and subject matter. The thematic darkness in the eight images waxes and wanes, and Milton intentionally included several interlude works to lighten the tension he felt while composing several of the darker images. The first two in the series, Family Reunion, and Hotel Paradise Café, were meant to be companion pieces. The equilibrium of each composition is anchored on a central brooding figure; a man (perhaps based on a Thomas Eakins portrait of the American anthropologist Frank Hamilton...
Engraving, Etching
Vin Rouge (Red Wine)
By Edmund Blampied
Located in Plano, TX
1932. Drypoint. Appleby 167. 9 1/4 x 11 5/8 (sheet 11 3/8 x 17 15/16). Edition 100 #48. Mat line, well outside the image; otherwise excellent condition. A rich impression with drypo...
Drypoint
THE FORGE - Rich Drypoint
By James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Located in Santa Monica, CA
JAMES ABBOTT MCNEIL WHISTLER (1834 – 1903) THE FORGE 1866 (Kennedy. 68 iv/vi: Glascow 86 vi/vi) Etching and drypoint. Signed and dated in the plate 1866. VERY GOOD IMPRESSION WITH...
Drypoint
$175
H 12.6 in W 9.4 in
Xisco Mensua Spanish artist 1995 original signed framed engraving print n3
By Xisco Mensua
Located in Miami, FL
Xisco Mensua (Spain, 1960) Untitled from Portfolio "Junio - Julio", 1995 engraving on paper 12.6 x 9.5 in. (32 x 24 cm.) Edition of 6 Frame 16x20 in. ID: MEN1253-003 Hand-signed by a...
Paper, Engraving
$450
H 9.25 in W 6.07 in
Bernard Sanders, Young Girl (With Arms Crossed), about 1930
By Bernard Sanders
Located in New York, NY
Young Girl by Bernard Sanders (1906-1967) is a classic example of his masterful portraiture. This is a drypoint. It is signed in pencil, titled in the lower left margin, and initial...
Drypoint
$28,000
H 19 in W 15 in
Femme au Fauteuil (Woman in the Armchair) - Signed Engraving Edition, 1939
By Pablo Picasso
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A significant aquatint by Picasso, ‘Femme au Fauteuil’ demonstrates the artist's mastery of a technique pioneered by Goya in his revolutionary printmaking practice. The aquatint medi...
Paper, Engraving, Aquatint
Politics
By Edmund Blampied
Located in Plano, TX
Politics (Tonnere de Brest). 1926. Drypoint. Appleby 108. 7 x 9 (sheet 10 1/2 x 15 1/2). A rich impression printed on cream wove paper with full margins. Illustrated: Salaman, Modern...
Drypoint, Etching
Soup
By Edmund Blampied
Located in Plano, TX
Soup. 1920. Drypoint. Appleby 65. 9 x 8 1/8 (sheet 15 x 11 9/16). Edition 100. Illlustrated: Print Collector's Quarterly 13 (1926): 85. Signed in pencil. Edmund Blampied was a painter, etcher, lithographer and sculptor. Born in 1886 to a family of three boys in St. Martin, Jersey, Blampied became interested in drawing at an early age. After visiting the studio of John Helier Lander in 1899, Blampied decided to make a career as an artist. In 1903 he went to London to attend Lambeth Art School, where he studied etching under Walter Seymour. In 1905, he joined the Daily Chronicle as an artist. In that year he was awarded a scholarship to Bolt Court Scool of Photo-engraving and Lithography. In 1912 he left the Chronicle and established his own studio. He earned a living by illustrating novels and short stories. In 1913, he had his first exhibition at the Leicester Gallery in London. The following year he married Marianne Van Abbé. During the 1920's, he became a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. During the 1920s Blampied became a member of the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers and exhibited in London to critical acclaim. He produced a folio of comic drawings in the 1930s which was published in New York in 1934 and another that was published in London in 1936. The Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum published a mongraph on his work. His London exhibitions were highly successful. In 1938, he moved to Bulwarks, St.Aubin in Jersey, but at the onset of the Occupation, had to relocate to Route Orange, St. Brelade. remained there throughout World War II during the German Occupation, despite the fact that his wife was Jewish. During the Occupation he designed bank...
Drypoint, Etching
France at her Furnaces
By James McBey
Located in Plano, TX
1917. Etching. Hardie 175. 8 x 15 (sheet 10 1/8 x 16 15/16). Edition 76. Slight mat line; otherwise excellent condition. A rich impression printed on antique laid paper with full m...
Drypoint, Etching
La diligence de Beaucaire
By Félix Hilaire Buhot
Located in Middletown, NY
Paris: Lemerre, 1880. Etching, drypoint, aquatint (dust ground and spirit ground), spit bite, and roulette in black on cream laid paper with a deckle edge, 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches (170 x 112 mm), full margins. Third state (of 3). An illustration from Alphonse Daudet's, Lettres de mon moulin, Paris, 1880. In very good condition with some light uniform toning and two areas of paper tape at the top right and left corners on the verso (from a former mount). With the 1921 J.H. de Bois circular ink stamp in green ink in the lower right margin on the recto (Lugt L.733). [Bourcard 110]. A note regarding the provenance: J. H. de Bois was a well known late-19th century modern art...
Laid Paper, Drypoint, Etching, Aquatint
Interiors VII: The Train from Munich
By Peter Milton
Located in Middletown, NY
Interiors VII: The Train from Munich Robert E. Townsend, 1991. Resist ground etching and engraving with hand refinement in charcoal, pencil, stabilo, and eraser on BFK Rives white wove paper, 20 x 36 inches (507 x 914 mm), full margins. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 51/175 by the artist in pencil, lower margin. A brilliant, inky impression with luminous light and gradient tones. In excellent condition with one extremely minor and superficial spot of light tan adhesive residue on the verso, unobtrusive and not visible on the recto, with no other visible defects. With the blind stamp of the printer, Robert E. Townsend in the lower left margin. An especially fine impression in superb condition. [Milton 113]. When asked about this work in particular, Milton expressed that his favorite images were his darkest images, in theme, mood, and in ink. Milton, who has said that his work is infused with a postmodern awareness of the past, has focused here in a deeply personal way on a segment of history that continues to haunt us all. The work, published in 1991, evokes one of the darkest periods of European history, the eroding and erasing of European culture under fascism, and the eventual total loss of humanity. The Train from Munich is an especially relevant and emotional work for Milton, who created the piece for his wife, Edith, who escaped Munich in 1939 as a child on the fabled Kinderstransport. The Kinderstransport was a desperate rescue effort on the part of the British government to save as many Jewish children as possible by railway before borders closed on the precipice of the Second World War. Children left their parents behind, and boarded the trains alone, leaving the impending doom of Nazi Germany, they arrived in Great Britain as refugees. More than 10,000 children escaped the holocaust via the Kinderstransport. In Train from Munich, the image itself holds an almost immeasurable amount of symbolism; each inch of the matrix is a successful effort to confront this history in a way that is poignant through a series of motifs. We see the Café disappearing into a ghostlike memory of the past, an allegory to the disintegration of culture, while through the windows we can see a rampant, snarling dog; a portrait of Hitler's shepherd, Blondi. Blondi isn't the only notable figure in the composition. Milton has pointed out that the fading figure of the doorman at the Hotel Metropole is modeled after the artist and intellectual Marcel Duchamp, and the face of the young girl peering...
Charcoal, ABS, Engraving, Etching