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ROBIN TANNER
A.R.E. (1904 – 1988)
Original Etching. Etched
1927.
Garton iii/iii. Published 1984
From the Edition of 12 by Garton and Cooke , Print Dealers and
Publishers,
New Bond Street, London. With
original publisher’s label to reverse
(The Church is St. Nicholas at Biddestone)
Signed in pencil
6 ½” x 8 3/8” (166mm x 215mm)
Overall framed size 16” x 17 ¼” (404mm x 437mm)
(The Hovel was made by the cow man as a store and a midday retreat)
Framed using ultra-violet filtering low reflect glass IMAGE IMAGE
“January”
Original
Etching etched 1983
Garton
iii/iii from the edition of 25 signed by the artist in pencil
Published
1985 by Garton and Cooke, Print Dealers and Publishers, New Bond Street,
London.
With
original Publisher’s label to reverse.
Framed
with ultra-violet filtering low reflect glass
Plate size 5 7/8” x 5 ¼” (148mm x 133mm)
Overall framed size 20 ¼” x 16 5/8” (515mm x 420mm) IMAGE IMAGE
Original
Etching
Etched
1935. Ref: Garton 19 only state
Plate
size 3 5/8” x 4 3/8” (92mm x 112mm).
Paper size 5 ½” x 7” (139mm x 178mm)
Overall
framed size 12 7/8” x 12 7/8” (326mm x 326mm)
Good
strong impression from the edition issued in K.M. Guichards
“British Etchers” 1850 – 1940
Published
by Robin Garton in 1977. Signed by the artist in pencil IMAGE IMAGE
Original Etching
Etched 1973. Ref: Garton 29 State
iii/iii
Plate size 9 5/8” x 7 ½” (245mm x
189mm). Paper size 12 7/8” x 10 ¼”
(328mm x 258mm)
Overall framed size 18” x 15 1/8” (456mm x
383mm)
Good strong impression from the edition
issued in K.M. Guichards “British Etchers” 1850 –
1940
Published by Robin Garton in 1977.
Signed by the artist in pencil IMAGE IMAGE
“The Old Road
(Elegy for the English Elm)”
Original
Etching
Etched
1976. Ref: Garton 76 State iii/iii
Plate
size 11 7/8” x 9 3/8” (300mm x 238mm).
Paper size 12 7/8” x 10 1/8” (328mm x 256mm)
Overall
framed size 20 ¼” x 17” (512mm x 430mm)
Good
strong impression from the edition issued in K.M. Guichards
“British Etchers” 1850 – 1940
Published
by Robin Garton in 1977. Signed by the artist in pencil IMAGE IMAGE
Robin
Tanner was an etcher, draughtsman and painter in watercolour.
He was also a teacher and writer. He was born in Bristol but spent most
of his life in northwest Wiltshire, which was the main subject of his
work. In 1921 he became a student teacher in a local school and he also
taught at a poor school in Greenwich. In 1927 he studied at Goldsmiths’
School of Art in the evenings, where his etchings began with Alington in
Wiltshire. His teachers included Clive Gardiner and Stanley Anderson
and he was influenced by Blake, Palmer and F.L.M. Griggs. In 1970 he
returned to Wiltshire and married the writer Heather Tanner, who was to supply
the text of several joint books. They had a house built at Kington
Langley. In the 1929 slump he took a teaching job while continuing his artistic
work and in 1934 was elected to the Society of Painters in Tempera. In
1935 Tanner was made a schools inspector, working initially in Leeds, then in
Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, where he advocated liberal ideas in arts and
crafts teaching. He retired in 1964, which allowed him to take up etching
again after a gap of about 20 years. A painstaking craftsman, he
completed only about 40 plates. Tanner was a Quaker who revered the
countryside and traditional crafts. Among his books were Wiltshire
Village, 1939; Flowers of the Meadow, 1948; Woodland Plants, 1981
and his autobiography Double Harness in 1987. There was a
retrospective at the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and at the
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 1980-81. In 1988 Garton & Co. held a
memorial show. There was a substantial exhibition of etchings at Wine
Street Gallery, Devizes in 2003. In 2004 a show reviewing his achievement
accompanied the Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair; and Visions of Landscape,
works by Samuel Palmer and Tanner, was organised by
the Fine Art Society. British Etchers published by Guichard, Prior
and Garton in 1977 says of Robin Tanner “The comparatively recent recognition
of Robin Tanner is overdue. Steeped in the English countryside, this
modest artist has greatly enriched our Pastoral Tradition………..The titles of the
etchings speak for themselves, announcing an idyllic world which today hovers
on the verge of extinction. Tanner continued his traditional etching in
Wiltshire and was an active trustee of the Crafts Study Centre in Bath.
By those critics gifted with smart vocabularies to analyse
trends, a native art tinged with nostalgia is scarcely noticed, but in this era
of extreme uncertainty where traditional values are being questioned or
discarded, the art of Robin Tanner sounds a note of sanity uncompromised by the
demands of commerce.” Tanner himself wrote “It is encouraging, always, to
find that anyone likes my work. You see, I can’t change it: I have to do
what comes naturally, out of me, and I am of course aware how ‘old-fashioned’
it is!”