Mikio Watanabe Animal Prints

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

"Combat Equestre" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (24/100) in the lower left. This piece depicts mu...

Original, Linen backed New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival poster from 1983. A fun image with a crawfish holding an umbrella with streamers. 1983 JAZZ & HERITAGE FESTIVAL PRO-MO ...

Original: THE SHIPS ARE COMING vintage poster. Artist: James H. Daugherty (1889-1974) Publisher: U.S. Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation, Publication Section, Philadelphia, 1917. Poster showing a giant eagle...

A fine impression of this very popular image with full margins (smaller on top and bottom) published by Associated American Artists.

Artist: Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907 - 1989) Title: Summer Gold Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 250, 5 HC Image S...

A fine impression with good margins published by Associated American Artists.

"The Meeting of Her Majesty's Stag Hounds on Ascot Heath" is a large colorful mezzotint engraving of an extensive British hunting scene. It was created by Sir Francis Grant...

Original Stan Galli "Pacific Northwest" United Air Lines Vintage Poster – Stunning Mid-Century Travel Art. Archival linen backed in excellent condition, ready to frame. Grade A. ...

Original 1950 “France, Paese dei Castelli” Vintage Poster Artist Jean Picart Le Doux Linen-Backed French Castles Travel Art Rare Mid-Century Collectible Add a touch of French el...

Artist: Mario Avati, French (1921 - 2009) Title: Elephant Equilibriste Year: 1969 Medium: Mezzotint, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 35/50 Image Size: 17.5 x 24 inches Size: 2...

Original PARIS linen-backed 1946 vintage travel poster, preservation linen-backed and ready to frame. Very good condition, Grade A- Original 1946 Paul Colin Paris Vintage Poster ...