A foreword to this monograph by a man with the golden name of Peyton Skipwith from the Fine Arts Society introduces us to the paintings and fine wood engravings of another man with a name to remember, Ethelbert “Bertie” White. With his wife Betty, White led the Bohemian life as a free artistic spirit of the 1920s and 1930s.
They travelled the country in a gypsy caravan and led the simple Boho life with no possessions. Ethelbert White’s best work was done in the 1920s when the meld between his paintings and wood engravings was at its closest, and this is the largest corpus of his work. His early 1920s and 1930s paintings, prints, book illustrations and poster designs are visually dynamic and currently reflect interest in the vibrancy of wood engravings.
Full of illustrations and photographs from the Ethelbert White estate, this book will bring this artist’s work to a wider audience. The wood engraving on page 39, Woman by a Window, of Ethelbert’s much-adored Betty, is a beauteous thing.
Bertie, Betty and their Boho life in a caravan
Ethelbert White (1891-1972): Painter Printmaker by Hilary Chapman, published by Primrose Hill Press Ltd, Stratton Audley Park, Bicester, Oxon OX27 9AB ISBN 190264834 6 £29.85 hb
