Pioneering female illustrator Gwenda Morgan creates an exuberantly complex image of a squad of broom-riding - pointed-hatted witches with black cats in tow. They fly through an inky black moonlit sky and are witnessed by only a rooftop owl. With the simple means of black and white, Morgan has rendered a highly charged composition that pluses with electricity. The whole image is on the cusp of being abstract while being representational. It is brilliantly designed with great attention to detail and is evocative of a sorcerer's malignant powers. Unframed. not signed
Printed from the original block as part of the suite of 8 prints that accompanied the limited edition book Diary of a Land Girl, Whittington Press, 2000. The suite of prints was included with the first 50 copies of the book, and a further 8 suites were printed, from which this print comes.
Gwenda Morgan (1 February 1908 – 1991) was a British wood engraver. She lived in the town of Petworth in West Sussex.
Early life
Morgan was born in Petworth, her father having moved there to work at the ironmongers, Austen & Co, of which he later became proprietor. He was the son of a Welsh-born military farrier.
Education
Following school in Petworth and at Brighton and Hove High School, Morgan, studied at Goldsmiths' College of Art in London from 1926. From 1930 she attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in Pimlico where she was taught and strongly influenced by the principal, Iain Macnab. The Grosvenor School was a progressive art school and the championing of wood engraving and linocuts fitted with its democratic approach to the arts.
Works
Morgan was commissioned to illustrate a number of books published by private presses. For the Samson Press she produced the frontispiece for Duke Hamilton...
Category
1950s Contemporary Don Schol Art
