Phyllis Dodd was born in Chester and studied firstly at Liverpool School of Art 1917-21 After winning a Royal Exhibition scholarship spent a further four years at the RCA in the company of her life-long friends Henry Moore, Raymond Coxon and Edna Ginesi. After gaining her diploma and winning the Drawing Prize in her final year she went on to teach part-time at Walthamstow Technical College 1925-30. Dodd exhibited at the RA, NEAC, RP, RSA and at the Walker Art Gallery. Her ninetieth birthday was celebrated with a major retrospective exhibition held at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University in November 1989. Married to the artist Douglas Percy Bliss, she held a joint exhibition with him at Derby Art Gallery, 1947. In the year of her death, a retrospective exhibition of her work was held at Newport Art Gallery who also have a fine portrait example in their collection as do Hull University. Douglas Percy Bliss was a Scottish painter and art conservationist. Born in Karachi, India (now in Pakistan), Bliss was raised in Edinburgh and educated at George Watson’s College from 1906 to 1917. Bliss left school in 1917 to join the Highland Light Infantry until the end of WW1. In 1922 he was awarded an M.A. in English Literature by the University of Edinburgh. He had studied Art History in his first year. Bliss then studied painting at the Royal College of Art in London. In his post-graduate year he studied engraving. In 1925 the Oxford University Press published his engravings illustrating Border ballads. Bliss then received a number of commissions, including a commission to write A History of Wood Engraving. This work received such critical acclaim that Bliss’ reputation as an artist was overshadowed by his reputation as a critic and teacher. In the 1930s he taught at the Blackheath School of Art and was the London art critic for The Scotsman. In 1941 Bliss joined the RAF and was stationed in Scotland. After the war he was appointed Director of the Glasgow School of Art. An exhibition of his work was held in the Glasgow School of Art in the summer of 1998.

Belleroche was an integral part of the Parisian art scene during the Belle Époque - he was a close friend of the artist John Singer Sargent with whom he shared studios in Paris and London; he was admired and collected by luminaires such as Degas and Renoir - anbdchampioned by the art critic Roger Marx. With Toulouse-Lautrec he shared the celebrated model Lily Grenier. And it is even said that Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray was inspired by Belleroche. Belleroche was considered by his contemporaries to be an innovator. In the art of lithography he developed techniques that built on the experiments of Degas and other Impressionist, (with whom he shared a fascination for monotypes). Despite all these fascinating facets of his life and art, his story remains largely unknown.

This remarkable publication examines a collection of works by the British painter Charles Mahoney (1903-1968).

For more than fifty years, George Kenney has dedicated himself to the study of European art, demonstrating a profound passion for works on paper, including etchings, drypoints, and lithographs. George authored a Catalogue Raisonné titled 'The Illustrated Bartsch, Vol. 51' for Abaris Books in 2017. This comprehensive work explores the etchings of Ferdinand Bol, a prominent 17th-century artist and student of Rembrandt. In 1990, George embarked on a 35-year journey, passionately studying and cataloging Belleroche's captivating lithographs, many of which were unpublished. In 2001, he collaborated with Steven Kern, curator of European art, to facilitate a significant exhibition of Belleroche’s lithographs at the San Diego Museum of Art, where he concurrently held a position as a Trustee. Additionally, George has a keen interest in 17th century English clocks and has contributed articles to Antiquarian Horology on Daniel Quare, a renowned clockmaker of that era. George attributes his early love for art to his mother, Marguerite Shirley Kenney, who took him to many museums during his childhood. Now residing in San Diego, California, George's entrepreneurial spirit has driven him through diverse careers, including roles as an engineer, inventor, venture capitalist, and business coach. Alongside his wife, Olga, he actively participates in the Small Group and Marriage Ministries at Saddleback Church.

This catalogue brings together one hundred years of British Painting, from 1880 – 1980. Women are at the forefront: the essential process of rewriting their work into the narrative continues.

‘Drawings’ is a collaborative venture combining two exhibitions that have been timed to coincide: British Drawings: 1890-1990 at Sotheran’s and Drawings 1990-2022 at Purdy Hicks Gallery. Both shows emphasise the importance of drawing to artists of the last 120 years: though many of the artists have used myriad other art forms, they have invariably returned to the honesty of drawing, time and time again.The artists reflect their times. The artists from 1890-1980 are very much associated with strong schools of thought. One school in particular, the Slade School of Fine Art, dominates. Its rigorous process of drawing underpins much that we see, but is of course interpreted differently artist by artist. There was most definitely a British School, and in terms of drawing its greatest, though largely unacknowledged, triumph can be found in the remarkable works produced by the artists of the British School at Rome with their use of drawing techniques dating back to the Renaissance. This catalogue contains outstanding examples by Winifred Knights, Evelyn Gibbs, Anne Newland, Thomas Monnington, Robert Austin, Alan Sorrell and Reginald Brill. Slade student Winifred Knights exemplified the teachings of Henry Tonks, (Professor of Fine Art at the Slade from 1918 to 1930), with her observation of nature and meticulous methodology, working through endless studies, which were in turn painstakingly transferred to create finished works. Gilbert Spencer, another of the Professor’s students, recalled how Tonks talked of dedication, the privilege of being an artist, that to do a bad drawing was like living with a lie, and he proceeded to implant these ideals by ruthless and withering criticism. I remember once coming home and feeling like flinging myself under a train, and Stan telling me not to mind as he did it to everyone.Methodology aside, many of the artists in this catalogue share common traits – an obsession with the minutiae of nature, an unbreakable attachment to landscape, an immersion in the narrative tradition, and an inability to resist humour and affection for the quirky and mundane.

By the end of John Cecil Stephenson’s art school training – first a scholarship to Leeds Art School then to The Royal College of Art – he was in a position to produce still lives, landscapes and portraits in a professional capacity. Like many painters of his generation, who had received similarly conventional instruction, he became a competent teacher, appointed in 1922, as Head of Art at The Northern Polytechnic. In this mould Stephenson might have remained a largely undistinguished painter – but in the early 1930s he found himself at the centre of a group of artists with avant-garde credentials, and his own art underwent a remarkable transformation. By 1934 he was exhibiting groundbreaking works such as Mask (CAT. 7), at the 7 & 5 Society, and in 1937 was a key contributor to the watershed publication and exhibition Circle, where his work was showcased alongside that of luminaries such as Kazimir Malevich, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. What led Stephenson to become, in the words of the celebrated art critic Herbert Read, ‘one of the earliest artists in the country to develop a completely abstract style’? Between March 1919 and November 1965, John Cecil Stephenson lived in London at No. 6 Mall Studios, off Tasker Road, Hampstead. As the father figure of what Read christened ‘a nest of gentle artists’, his next door neighbours included, during the course of the decade leading up to World War II, Barbara Hepworth, John Skeaping, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. Such fertile ground was further enriched by visits from artists fleeing persecution – including Piet, László Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Calder – just a few of the many internationally acclaimed artists who, whilst passing through London, formed part of the art set who congregated around Read’s house at No. 3 Mall Studios.

This publication examines how artist’s portray themselves in self-portraits and how they portray their fellow artists. The artist’s studio, models and milieu (friends, family etc) are also considered.Most of Liss Llewellyn’s projects in the last twenty five years have involved workingdirectly with artists’ studios. Amongst the thousands and thousands of images that until now had lain undisturbed, often hardly seen since the day they were created, some occasionally stand out. Often modest in size and not obviously works of importance; a scrap of paper recording the intense introspective gaze of an artist, or a moment of intimacy suggesting the artist was in love with his subject – be it his or her spouse, model or children.This portrait of an artist is the result of twenty years of collecting and brings together a remarkable group of works which, large or small, minor or major all have in common one quality – the ability to transport the viewer momentarily into the artist’s milieu.

WOW - a collaboration between Liss Llewellyn and the Laing Art Gallery - showcases 38 British women artists working on paper between 1905 and 1975, a transformative period for women in the arts. The featured artists approached the medium in vari­ous ways, using traditional as well as innovative techniques to transform paper into beautiful and complex works of art. The exhibition celebrates the diversity of these approaches and highlights the ways in which paper provided artists with a rich arena for artistic innovation. Paper’s adaptability allows for a multitude of techniques. Using paper in its traditional role as a support for drawings and prints, or creating collage and sculpture, the fea­tured artists responded to the medium’s inherent qualities - malleable, smooth and sensuous - to test ideas, express feelings or create a finished work. It is often in the more formative moments that the works in this exhibition most resonate; through these studies we bear witness to the seed of an idea in germination, as in Clare Leigh­ton's iconic Southern Harvest, or Evelyn Dunbar's celebrated works for the War Artist's Advisory Committee. Selecting hand-made, mould-made or machine-made papers in various weights, tex­tures and tints - depending on their intentions - artists worked with a variety of media from pencil, ink and pastel, to watercolour, tempera and oil, sometimes incorporating extraneous elements such as gold leaf and metallic forms. Working on monumental sheets, such as Winifred Knights' cartoon for St Martin's Altarpiece or tiny pages such as Edith Granger-Taylor's Small Grey Abstract, women’s choices were nevertheless some­times dictated by circumstance: the propensity of Frances Richards and Tirzah Gar­wood - by no means isolated cases - to work on paper on a small scale was in part a result of not having access to a studio. From portraits, landscapes, botanical studies and genre scenes, many of the works in WOW highlight the artist's skill and dexterity in drawing on paper, which was at the core of artistic training and practice. Some artists have used the traditional techniques of etching, screen printing and woodblock to create a diverse range of images. Others highlight the ethereal properties of paper through precise cuts, resulting in elaborate collages combining shapes, patterns and designs, or compact and manipulate paper to create inventive and surprising sculptures. Featuring both famous and lesser-known talents, WOW celebrates the many ways in which women artists expressed themselves through works on, and with paper and highlights their unique contribution to the graphic arts in 20th century Britain.

Hugh Finney was a painter, draughtsman and teacher who trained initially at Bromley School of Art, where he attended evening classes from 1915, and then at Beckenham School of Art to where he won a trade scholarship in 1918. He studied painting with Amy Katherine Browning and etching with Eric Gill. Around 1927 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, where he studied under William Rothenstein. Horton, Houthuesen, Ososki and Freedman were amongst his friends at the college. In 1929 after graduation he took up a travelling scholarship to Rome returning to teach part-time at Chelsea School of Art under Percy Jowett and later Harold Sandys Williamson. From 1927-1934 he exhibited at the NEAC. In 1935 his painting Mother and Child was acquired by Carlisle Art Gallery. During WW2 Finney worked for the light rescue service of the Civil Defense. After the war he taught part time under Anthony Betts at Reading University and was in charge of life drawing there when he retired in 1970. Although he was reclusive and reluctant to show his work he did exhibit at the RA Summer exhibition (in 1950 and 1954) and the Portrait Society and at The Paris Salon. A large solo exhibition took place at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Education in 1964.

Which artists in British 20th century art painted religious images? Broadly speaking there seem to have been two categories:The first concerns artists who created religious images when the religious content was in response to a set subject, for example The Deluge in the 1920 Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting, or who responded to a specific commission, for example Thomas Monnington‘s works for The Ormond Chapel, Bradford, Kippen Church and Stations of the Cross for Brede Church in Hastings.The second category concerns a small minority off artists who were committed believers such as Frank Brangwyn, Eric Gill and Stanley Spencer. No account of 20th Century British art can overlook the numerous works of the period that were essentially “religious” in their content. Art, Faith& Modernity examines this question in Paul Liss‘ and Alan Powers’ essays and demonstrates the wide range of expression in more than 200 colour reproductions.

Co-published with The Fleece Press. The book is titled While Daddy’s Away at the War: Poems and Pictures Sent to his Daughters by Douglas Percy Bliss. When DPB went away to do his wartime service, he made for each of his daughters Prudence and Rosalind a little album of handwritten poems by authors such as Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson and Frances Cornford, every poem illustrated delightfully with wit and humour. There are about 66 poems (some of them clearly Bliss favourites but not now as well known as they really should be), and Douglas’ images; these will all be reproduced in a facsimile volume, with 4 tipped-in illustrations and a short letterpress introduction by the ladies for whom the anthologies were created in 1941 and 1945.

Originating from Berlin Hagedorn moved to Manchester in 1905 to train in textile production. Having studied art under Adolphe Valette at the local Manchester School ofArt and then The Slade School of Art, his training was completed by a period in1912-13 where, working under Maurice Denis, he absorbed a range of avant-garde styles. On his return to England, he made a consciously pioneering attempt to introduce Modernism into Manchester through his work as both painter and designer, exhibiting at the Manchester Society of Modern Painters, RA, RBA, RSMA and with the NEAC. . He became a British subject in 1914 and served as a Lance-Corporal in the Middlesex Regiment during World War I. In 1925 he received the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Decorative Art, Paris and in 1935 he was elected RBA. He exhibited at a number of leading galleries in London and the provinces, and was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Society of Marine Artists, the New English Art Club and the NS. Hagedorn has only been the subject of one exhibition and publication: ‘Manchester’s First Modernist’, a catalogue produced by the Chris Beetles Gallery on the occasion of the retrospective organised in conjunction with the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

Ever since Linda Nochlin asked in 1971, ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’, art history has been probing the female gaze. Through scholarship and exhibitions, readings have been put in place to counter prevailing assumptions that artistic creativity is primarily a masculine affair. Fifty Works by Fifty British Women functions as a corrective to the exclusion of women from the ‘master’ narratives of art. It introduces fifty artworks by known and lesser-known women – outstanding works that speak out. Fifty commentaries by fifty different writers bring out each artwork’s unique story – sometimes from an objective art historical perspective and sometimes from an entirely personal point of view – thereby creating a rich and colourful diorama. This exhibition does not, however, attempt to present a survey or to address all the arguments around the history of women and art. Anthologies are of necessity incomplete, and many remarkable imaginations are not here represented. Women artists have been set apart from male artists not only to their own disadvantage but also to the detriment of British art. While there were some improvements for women to access an artistic career in the twentieth century in terms of patronage, economics and critical attention – all the things that confer professional status – women had the least of everything. By showcasing just a few of the remarkable works produced, this exhibition draws attention to the fact that a vision of British twentieth century art closer to a 50/50 balance would not only provide a truer account, but also a more vivid and meaningful narrative.

David Evans’ death in a road accident in 1988, at the age of 59, bought to an abrupt end the career of one of the most distinguished watercolourists of his generation. The recent discovery of pictures remaining in his studio, nearly thirty years after the memorial tribute staged by the Redfern Gallery in 1988, provides the opportunity for a new generation to discover his work, though the publication of this first ever book on David Evans and the accom- panying touring exhibition. Evans’ strikingly large watercolours, (typically they measure over one metre in height or breadth), span two decades from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, evoking a vision that is still surprisingly potent today. They have all the period charm of the glam-rock era they so powerfully evoke but at the same time they are highly charged with the political energy of the pe- riod and mirror Thatcher’s Britain, with its Industrial unrest, its towns and country undergoing transformation, the Faulklands war and threat of the Evil Empire, the building of nuclear power stations and the dawn of awareness about Climate Change as a political issue. Evans was an ardent campaigner and environmentalist. The landscapes, (a homage to his native Suffolk) are peppered with industrial plants, landfill, scrap heaps, and encroaching roads and army maneuvers. Urban subjects, similar in some ways to the compo- sitions of Lowry, show factory plants, spectators’ sports, cafeterias, the interiors of museums, city centers and beach scenes.

This book is published on the eve of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the launch of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee and the iconic War Pictures by British Artists series. The scheme, devised by Kenneth Clark, played a vital role in both how the war was perceived at the time and how it has been perceived by future generations. The WAAC initiative also changed the course of the careers of the 400 artists whom became involved, 37 of whom were salaried. Brian Foss’s introductory essay gives a fascinating account of the origins of the scheme and its aims and evolution. Using the format established in the War Pictures by British Artists’ publications the chapters are organised into 8 sections, (as per the eight books in the original series). Alongside the work of the better known Official War Artists this publication will also include examples of work by less well know (unofficial) war artists adding resonance to the remarkable story of War Pictures by British Artists. The book is completed by an appendix providing a statistical analysis of how many artists were involved, who they were and what they produced.