France at her furnaces

Self-taught as an artist, James McBey (1883-1959) was born in Newburgh near Aberdeen. He worked as a bank clerk from the age of fifteen, learning about art from books. After reading about etching, he became interested in printmaking, producing his first prints using a domestic mangle and building his own printing press. An admirer of Rembrandt's prints, McBey launched his artistic career in 1910 by travelling to the Netherlands. He returned to live in London before working in Egypt as an Official War Artist in 1917. McBey reached the peak of his popularity as an etcher in the 1920s, but when the print market collapsed due to the Depression, he mainly produced portraits on commission. McBey didn't associate himself with artistic movements, but saw himself as a traditional, skilled craftsman. Following his marriage in 1931, McBey lived mostly in Morocco, and during World War Two, the United States. He died in Tangier, Morocco, in 1959.

McBey remains one of Scotland's - and Britain's - greatest printmakers, who intelligently continued in the vein of James McNeill Whistler, and who along with his older contemporaries, William Strang, Muirhead Bone and particularly D.Y. Cameron, constituted an extraordinary body of Scottish etchers. By being essentially self-taught, McBey is arguably the most remarkable of them all.

At the start of World War One, McBey's poor eyesight prevented him enlisting as a soldier but in February 1916 he was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant whilst employed by the Army Printing and Stationery Service, based at Rouen, France. While on leave there he completed two series of sketches, France at her Furnaces, showing the munition works at Harfleur, and some views of the Somme. After these drawings were shown in London, McBey was appointed an official war artist to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.

This drypoint is from an edition of 76 stemming from the Schneide Munitions works drawings. Two men, in an atmosphere of heat and steam, are pulling out red-hot shells with long iron rods from the retorts. All is geared towards the war effort, and McBey is in the thick of it. The use of blurred edges on the working figures makes the lines appear very dark. Drypoint helps convey this blurred surface, which is very different from the precise lines of engravings and even etchings. The stark contrast between these dark lines and the white of the paper creates the illusion of light and shadows.

See:

Aberystwyth University Artist Collections, 'James McBey', https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/art/gallery-museum/collections/artist-collections/mcbeyjames/

National Galleries Scotland, https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/james-mcbey

Doris Ulmann Galleries, Berea, KY,  'France at the Furnaces', http://dulmanngalleries.berea.edu/news/portfolio-items/france-at-the-furnaces/

Dr Mark Stocker  Curator, Historical International Art   June 2018