E-catalogue 95: British Illustration, 1890-1930 (excluding Eric Gill)

E-catalogue 95: British Illustration, 1890-1930 (excluding Eric Gill)

In the language of images, there are common tongues that speak in words we know—shape, line, color—about what we cannot yet understand. The generation of British artists and illustrators working at the turn of the twentieth century through the interwar period achieved such a mastery. The likes of Arthur and Georgie Gaskin, Edward Burne-Jones, Kate Greenaway, and Paul Nash drew upon the heavy lore and artistic heritage of the British Isles, the hope of the new millennium, and the grief of war after war after war. The romance of their illustrations, from Burne-Jones’s sensitive work for the Kelmscott Chaucer, exemplified in proofed and published leaves presented here, to Gaskin’s familiar countryside vistas and intimate portraits, sends pangs of longing across time to the viewer today. In this catalogue, we invite you to explore the detail and devotion with which they translated the world, and find in it both comfort and fascination.