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Overview
Sir Muirhead Bone (1876-1953) was a Scottish artist known for his piquant drypoint etchings, draughtsmanship and watercolours. Bone originally trained as an architect at the Glasgow School of Art. After initially taking night classes, he turned to printmaking in 1898. Self-taught, his early works likely took the style of those he studied, chiefly Charles Meryon and James Whistler. In 1901 Bone moved to London, quickly gaining a reputation, moving in the same circles as art collector Campbell Dodgson and D.Y. Cameron, a contemporary of Bone in etching and a fellow Scotsman. In 1916, Bone successfully campaigned for the role of the first official British War Artist, filling the position in both World War One and World War Two. Between the World Wars, Bone continued to build up a considerable reputation, exhibiting frequently in both London and New York. A mentor of many young artists, he served as a trustee of the Tate Gallery, the National Gallery and Imperial War Museum. He was knighted in 1937.
Bone's watercolours and lustrous drawings are evidence of his incredible skill in depicting often grim wartime landscapes and human activity. However, it is in his drypoints that we can see his true mastery over architectural detail. His strengths are in rendering line and balance to create dynamic cityscapes, concerned primarily with the existence of buildings in all their states, including the comings and goings of their construction. Bone's architectural training is a fetchingly persistent ‘backbone’ in these works.
This eloquently composed drypoint has been laboured over carefully by Bone; numerous studies were made trying out different layouts for his selected vision of Beak Street in Soho. In this final, finished print, the clock of the famous clothing and lifestyle department store Liberty has been reduced in size and marginalised somewhat on the left. The size, darkness and detail of the scaffold around the building on the right dwarfing the clock; the focus of the work being on the harmonious composition and construction of the street rather than a true depiction of the clock.
Sources:
British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=131762
David Cohen, ‘Bone, Muirhead’, Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed: 6 December 2017
National Galleries Scotland, https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/sir-muirhead-bone
Wikipedia, 'Muirhead Bone', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muirhead_Bone
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art December 2017