Collection: Howard Phipps Wood Engravings

Howard Phipps is a painter and printmaker with a special interest in wood engraving, a medium in which he is acknowledged as a leading exponent. In recent years his work has been acquired by several prominent institutions, such as the Ashmolean Museum,  Oxford, The British Museum, & the Yale Centre for British Art in the USA. 

"Much of my art is rooted in the chalk downs of Wiltshire and Dorset, with their deep coombes and beech clumps. I make drawings or watercolours on location and my wood engravings are based upon these observations; ancient ways and earthworks draw my eye, timeless places on which earlier generations have left their mark. I like to reveal the underlying sculptural nature of distinctive hill forms, such as hill forts, observed when the sun is low."

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More on Howard Phipps

Howard Phipps was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales in 1954. He studied Painting and Printmaking at the Gloucestershire College of Art in Cheltenham 1971 – 75. Following a Post graduate year in Brighton he taught in Plymouth until 1980, before moving to live near Salisbury where he is still based. He was elected an RWA academician [ Royal West of England Academy ] in 1979, and a member of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1985.

Howard has a special interest in wood engraving, a method of relief printmaking where the polished surface of a block of end grain Boxwood is engraved with traditional tools with names such as scorper and spitsticker. On completion the surface of the block is inked using a roller and an impression taken on paper using an Albion hand press [dated 1862].

Much of Howards art is rooted in the downs of Wiltshire and Dorset, with their deep coombes and Beech clumps. He works from drawings and watercolours made on location, using light to reveal the underlying sculptural form of the landscape. Ancient trackways and striking hill forms draw his eye – timeless places on which earlier generations have left their mark. His subsequent wood engravings are profoundly imbued with a sense of place.

Howard’s work has been acquired for a number of public and private collections which include The British Museum; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Dorset County Museum; Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter; Salisbury Museum; Cheltenham Art Gallery; Manchester Metropolitan University; Russell Cotes Museum, Bournemouth; The Julian Francis collection of Wood engravings; The Heilongjiang Museum of Art, China; and The Hunt Institute, Pittsburgh, USA.

The difference between Woodcut Prints and Wood Engravings, explained by Howard Phipps