1. Blair Rowlands Hughes-Stanton was a major figure in the English wood-engraving revival in the twentieth century.
18 Facts About Blair Hughes-Stanton
1. 2.
Blair Hughes-Stanton was the son of the artist Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton.
3.
Blair Hughes-Stanton exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers, but was more in sympathy with the philosophy of the English Wood Engraving Society, of which he was a founding member in 1925.
4.
Blair Hughes-Stanton co-directed the Gregynog Press from 1930 to 1933 with his wife, Gertrude Hermes.
5.
At the age of 19 he switched direction completely after a conversation with his father, the Royal Academician Sir Herbert Blair Hughes-Stanton, and joined the Byam Shaw School of Art.
6.
Blair Hughes-Stanton was commissioned to engrave ten tail-pieces for the monumental limited edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
7.
Blair Hughes-Stanton produced his characteristic wood engravings for Comus by John Milton in 1931, Erewhon by Samuel Butler in 1932 and The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, Four Poems by Milton and The Lamentations of Jeremiah, all of which appeared in 1933.
8.
In March 1932 Hermes left Blair Hughes-Stanton and moved back to London, where she stayed with Leon Underwood.
9.
When Blair Hughes-Stanton left the Gregynog Press he returned to London with Ida Affleck Graves.
10.
In 1970 Blair Hughes-Stanton offered the remaining 25 sets of Japan Vellum sheets and 125 sets of Basingwerk sheets to the Basilisk Press.
11.
Blair Hughes-Stanton produced a number of books, more or less significant, during this period.
12.
In 1938, Blair Hughes-Stanton won the International Prize for Engraving at the Venice Biennale.
13.
Blair Hughes-Stanton served in the Middle East and then transferred to Greece, where he was captured.
14.
Blair Hughes-Stanton's injury incapacitated him and he was moved to a series of camps in Germany, and he was finally repatriated to Britain in August 1943.
15.
Blair Hughes-Stanton left Graves in 1950 and took refuge with Gertrude Hermes.
16.
Blair Hughes-Stanton died in 1981, and his ashes were scattered on the River Stour, Suffolk, by his two friends from the local pub, Peter and Joe.
17.
Blair Hughes-Stanton is known for the very fine white lines of his engravings, which presented considerable difficulty to pressmen trying to print his engravings on hard handmade paper.
18.
The definitive work on Blair Hughes-Stanton is the biography and catalogue by his daughter, Penelope Blair Hughes-Stanton.