Rough Weather at Blatchington Pulling in the Fishing Nets on the English Coast by Sir Frank Short

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Drypoint etching rawing of a coastal scene with figures drawing a net or boat form the sea by Sir Francis … Read more Drypoint etching rawing of a coastal scene with figures drawing a net or boat form the sea by Sir Francis (Frank) Job Short (British, 1857 - 1945)
Sir Frank Short, Royal Academy*, was a printmaker and teacher of printmaking. He revived the practices of mezzotint* and aquatint* engraving, and also wrote about printmaking to educate a wider public.
Signed "Frank Short" lower right with monogram in the print "S within a shield"
Titled lower left "Rough Weather at Blatchington"
Lower left "Trial Proof"
Image, 8.5"H x 10.88"W
Mat, 16"H x 20"W x 0.13
Professionally cleaned and ph nuetral washed by our paper conservator. (new images posting)

Francis Job Short was born on 19 June 1857 in Britain, at Stourbridge, Worcestershire. He was educated to be a civil engineer.

He was engaged on various works in the Midlands until 1881, when he came to London as assistant to Mr Baldwin Latham in connection with the Parliamentary Inquiry into the pollution of the river Thames. In 1883 he was elected an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Having worked at the Stourbridge School of Art in his early years he joined the South Kensington School of Art*, in 1883. He also worked at the life class under Professor Fred Brown at the Westminster School of Art*, and for a short time at the Schools of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-colours.

His real life-work now became that of an original and translator engraver. He was a keen student of the works of JMW Turner; and his etchings and mezzotints from Turner's Liber Studiorum (1885 seq.), examples of painstaking devotion and skill, were among his earliest successes, combining sympathetic study of the originals with a full knowledge of the resources of engraving and unwearied patience. Short received praise, constant advice and encouragement from Ruskin, and the co-operation of students of Turner such as William George Rawlinson and the Revd. Stopford Augustus Brooke.

After completing the series from the existing plates of Turner's Libe, Short turned to the subjects which Turner and his assistants had left incomplete. Several fine plates resulted from this study, bearing the simple lettering "F. Short, Sculp., after J. M. W. Turner, R.A.," which told little of the work expended on their production even before the copper was touched.

Short also reproduced in fine mezzotints several pictures of George Frederick Watts, Orpheus and Eurydice, Diana and Endymion, Love and Death, Hope and the portrait of Lord Tennyson, all remarkable as faithful and imaginative renderings. His own fine quality as a water-colour painter made him also a sympathetic engraver of the landscapes of David Cox and Peter de Wint.

His subtle drawing of the receding lines of the low banks and shallows of river estuaries and flat shores is seen to perfection in many of his original etchings, mezzotints, and aquatints, notably Low Tide and the Evening Star and The Solway at Mid-day. Other plates that may be mentioned are:

As head of the Engraving School at the Royal College of Art, South Kensington, Short had great influence on younger engravers. He was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers* in 1885, and took a prominent part in conducting its affairs. In 1910 he succeeded Sir Seymour Haden as president.

Short received, amongst other distinctions, the gold medal for engraving at the Paris International Exhibition*, 1889, and another gold medal (Rappel) 1900. In 1906 Short was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, when membership as Associate Engraver was revived; and in 1911 he was elected a full Academician, and also received a knighthood. His work as a watercolour painter was recognized in 1917 when he was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours*.

The Etched and Engraved Work of Frank Short, by Edward F Strange (1908), describes 285 plates by the artist. See less