George Percival Gaskell
(Shipley, Yorkshire 1868 - Hampstead 1934)
Shipwreck on the beach
Aquatint
Measurements: mm 250 x 348; sheet mm 370 x 475
Engraver and landscape painter trained at the Royal College of Art in London, and later in Paris and Italy. Professor of Art History at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London. From 1896 until his retirement in 1930, he was principal of the Regent Street Polytechnic, London. His works have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, and Royal Society of British Artists of which he was elected a member in 1896. He often engraved using the mezzotint or black manner technique in continuous research for light effects, demonstrating a personal sensitivity for modulating tones, atmospheres in fog, clouds or on bodies of water. A large example of his production is preserved at the British Museum in London and the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio.
The landscape is shown to the viewer through an intense play of light and shadow; in the sky the clouds thin out letting the sunlight filter through, which has already turned the surface of the water silver in the background. On the right, seagulls fly around a shipwreck on the right, breaking the effect of silence and emptiness that would have been perceived. The romantic and melancholic atmosphere is an extraordinary demonstration of mastery and command of the medium, which seems to compete with the possibilities of the photographic medium.
Excellent impression, wide margins beyond the copperplate mark. Untrimmed sheet.
