GWENDOLEN RAVERAT (BRITISH 1885-1957)
The Fisherman
woodcut
5.5 x 11.8 cm

Certificate of Authentication from the Raverat Archive (on the reverse)

NOTES: Gwendolen Mary Darwin was born in Cambridge in 1885; she was the daughter of astronomer Sir George Howard Darwin and his wife, Lady Darwin (née Maud du Puy). She was the granddaughter of the naturalist Charles Darwin
She married the French painter Jacques Raverat in 1911. They were active in the Bloomsbury Group and Rupert Brooke's Neo-Pagan group until they moved to the south of France.
Raverat was one of the first wood engravers recognised as modern. She went to the Slade School in 1908.
Raverat played a significant part in the wood engraving revival in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century. By 1914 she had completed sixty wood engravings, far more than any of her contemporaries. Her name recurs consistently in all contemporary reviews, and the first book devoted to a modern wood engraver was Herbert Furst's Gwendolen Raverat. She illustrated the first book illustrated with modern wood engravings, Spring Morning, and she exhibited at every annual exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers between 1920 and 1940, exhibiting 122 engravings, more than anyone else.