His Honour Judge Parry

Malcolm Osborne (1880-1963) was born in Frome, Somerset. He studied at Bristol School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London, under Sir Frank Short; when Short retired in 1924 he succeeded him as head of the etching and engraving school. He was elected President of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1939 and won other honours such as membership of the Royal Academy and the CBE (1948). Osborne produced just over a hundred prints, including British and European land and townscapes, but it is for his portraiture that he is most highly regarded.

His Honour Judge Parry helps explain why; the drypoint is not only impeccably executed, and evocative of Hans Holbein working 400 years earlier in its mock-classically inscribed tablet, but also as a character study of this now fairly elderly and highly experienced judge clad in his wig and judicial dress. Certainly no beauty, Parry emerges nonetheless as intelligently alert and one senses that he wouldn't suffer fools gladly.

See: British Council Visual Arts, 'Malcolm Osborne (1880-1963), http://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/collection/artists/osborne-malcolm-1880

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   August 2018