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Overview
Gwen Raverat, neé Darwin (1885-1957) was a highly individual and intensely personal artist who contributed greatly to the revival of wood engraving as an original art form in the early 20th century. Her first engravings date from 1909 and by 1920 she joined her colleagues Eric Gill, Edward Gordon Craig and Robert Gibbings in founding the Society of Wood Engravers.
The granddaughter of Charles Darwin, Raverat began wood engraving purely as a personal interest. Most of her work before 1932 was in the form of single prints produced solely for her own pleasure. Few were issued in formal editions and all are now rare. She adopted a simple yet striking style of wood engraving technique which did not depend upon the detail and pattern of lines obtained through the use of the tint tool. Instead, she concentrated upon the use of stark contrast with only simple shading to create her highly individual and stylish designs. The art historian Frances Spalding, published the highly acclaimed Gwen Raverat : friends, family and affections in 2001.
Somewhat unusually for Raverat, this print is a lithograph rather than a wood engraving. It depicts her young daughter Elisabeth (b. 1916), lying in an armchair, pensive, passive, probably not far removed from sleeping. It's a work of charming informality and has a passing resemblance to her near contemporary Jacob Epstein's drawings of his children.
See:
Campbell Fine Art, 'Gwen Raverat', http://www.campbell-fine-art.com/artists.php?id=302
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art May 2018