 |
Mark Handley read English Literature at Cambridge University and went
on to train and practice as an architect. He began making linocuts
in 1980 inspired by the character, example and friendship of Edward
Bawden, for whom he designed a work room in Saffron Walden. His prints
reveal a preoccupation with robust design and gentle humour; (he won
a prize in a Punch cartoon competition in 1969 and subsequently
made a series for the Cambridge Evening News on the local subjects
of bicycling and punting). His work is held in a number of private
and public collections and has featured in numerous exhibitions; including
the Conservatory Gallery, The Heffers Gallery, Cambridge, the Old
Fire Engine House, Ely, Wiggins Teape Paperpoint, London and Aldeburgh.
An article on his technique was published in The Artist in
June 1998. In 1987 the illustrator, David Eccles wrote of his cuts:
He is a dull fellow who fails to respond
to the straightforwardness and humour of Handley's images. For those
who care to analyse such things, his work can be seen to relate
to that grand and peculiarly English traditition which must include
such names as Joseph Crawhall, the Beggarstaffs and Edward Bawden...
These prints are bold and big - some are very big - and they possess
a kind of innocence which in hands less confident inevitably looks
contrived; but the line here is always firm, the design always assured...
These pictures have the reassuring quality - and often the texture
- of really good thick English marmalade; honest sustaining stuff
that ought to be spread generously.
Linocuts on paper, each signed,
titled and numbered from the edition of 50; larger cuts 50 x 20 cm.;
smaller 13 x 11 cm. (average)
other available subjects include: Dr Leavis, Thomas Hobson, Catherine
Parr, Ethel Monticue, I.K. Brunel, Phillip IV of Spain, Victoria and
Albert, Oscar Wilde, Bewick's Lion, Shelley, E.M. Forster, Shakespeare,
Sir Richard Burton, James Elroy Flecker, Thomas Hardy, Don Quixote,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, G. B. Shaw, James Cable, Britannia, Edward Lear,
Prufrock, Coleridge, Robert Graves and D.H. Lawrence. Please allow 2
weeks for delivery.
|
|
