Old Houses, Milbank Grosvenor Road London 1906 by Joseph Pennell

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Old Houses, Milbank Grosvenor Road London 1906

This an etching of Grosvenor Road Old Houses, done in 1906 by American … Read more Old Houses, Milbank Grosvenor Road London 1906

This an etching of Grosvenor Road Old Houses, done in 1906 by American printmaker and Whistler biographer Joseph Pennell (American, 1857-1926). This impression is pencil signed and annotated NX and S lower left and right. The platemark measures 8-1/4 x 10-3/4 inches. The image is a very early proof impression, before the clouds are added to the sky above left, the boat in lower foreground left was sketched in later, dock detail center is more defined. The final state was printed by the artist in an edition of around 50 impressions on a stiff wove tan paper that measures 9 1/2" x 12" inches. References for this image include Wuerth 413, proof state, Library of Congress: 1805. The cancelled plate exists and is in the Library of Congress. Philadelphia-born Joseph Pennell, spent the first two decades of his career abroad, living primarily in London, where he became a close associate of fellow American-born artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
This trail proof has irregular margins and is off center as and untrimmed margins on this proof and Pennell left a tab at the bottom with his pencil signature and title with printing notations lower left and right..

Total of 50 proofs, this being an early trial proof outside of the 50 made.
Signed and titled in pencil by te artis "Jo Pennell" , Titled lower left "Old Houses Milbank London"
Some age toning from a prior mat evident.
Plate: 8-1/4"h x 10-3/4"W
Sheet: 9.25"H x 12"H
Mat15"H x 20"W

Joseph Pennell was born on July 4, 1857, Independence Day, in Philadelphia to Quaker parents. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art. A lithographer, etcher, author, educator, lecturer, and illustrator, Pennell is considered by many to be the dean of American printmaking.

By 1882 he was illustrating for Scribner's Magazine and The Century and received a commission for illustrating a book on Tuscany. In 1884 he traveled to Europe and settled in London. He produced numerous books, both as an author and as an illustrator, many of them in collaboration with his wife, author Elizabeth Robins Pennell. In London his friends included many of the most notable creative figures of the day, including the writers George Bernard Shaw and Robert Louis Stevenson and the painters John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler. His close acquaintance with Whistler led the Pennells' to undertake a biography of that artist in 1906, and, after some litigation with his executrix for the right to use his letters, the book was published in 1908.

In 1912 Pennell left London for Panama where he created a series of lithographs rendering the building of the Panama Canal. He voyaged via steamer along the Pacific Coast to San Francisco where he created numerous etchings of San Francisco from Chinatown to the Cliff House. While in San Francisco he influenced the founding of the California Society of Etchers.

In 1915, Pennell chaired the group Jury for Etchings and Engravings of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition where over 2200 prints were exhibited and an entire gallery was devoted to his work. Pennell was a member of numerous organizations, including the Society of Painter-Etchers in London and first president of the Senefelder Club. His tutelage of artists and scholars continue with his Etchers and Etching and Lithography and Lithographers and his bequeath of his collection of prints and drawings to the Library of Congress.

During his lifetime Pennell produced more than 900 etchings and mezzotints and more than 600 lithographs on architectural and landscape subjects ranging from the Panama Canal and Yosemite National Park to the factories of England and the temples of Greece. Pennell distinguished himself not only as one of America's most talented etchers but also as a promotional genius who helped to spur the revival of print making and print collecting during the first two decades of the 20th century. See less