Piccadilly Circus.

The British artist Stanley Anderson (1884-1966) was responsible for reviving line engraving as a mode of original graphic expression, when it had become all but obsolete. He learned the process as an apprentice to a heraldic engraver, but initially achieved fame as an etcher and drypointist in the renaissance of British etching during and after World War I, as seen in this print. In 1929 he turned his skills to engraving on a copper plate, and he will chiefly be remembered for his engravings of English rural crafts dating from 1932, for which he was made CBE in 1951. These are well represented in Te Papa's collection. His subjects also included drypoints continental market scenes,etchings of down and outs in 1920s London, and  views of urban construction and demolition sites. In the early inter-war years Anderson's work was mainly composed of portraits, landscapes and street scenes. From the 1920s he began to add social comment and ironic commentary, which increased in the 1930s as his work became more mature and began to reflect his growing disillusionment with modern life.

Anderson's etchings of London show a city in the midst of turbulent times. He captured the changing face of the capital as old buildings were torn down and new developments sprang up in their place. This had an inevitable effect on the city's inhabitants, in ways that echo the demographic impact of London's inflated real estate bubble today. This scene of Piccadilly Circus - the heart of theatreland, London's west end and, as sometimes described at the time, the British Empire - prominently features Sir Alfred Gilbert's much loved late Victorian Eros statue and fountain, the Shaftesbury Memorial.. Nearby are a number of the so-called flower girls, long associated with this site, male 'loafers' and two open-top buses. John Nash's charming Regency architecture, looking down-at-heel here, would soon yield to Sir Reginald Blomfield's more grandiose, French classical vision, with Swan & Edgar's department store replacing the Provident Life Assurance building.

See: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/video-stanley-anderson-london

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Anderson_(artist)

Dr Mark Stocker  Curator, Historical International Art   February 2018