Sold for: $8,125

PROVENANCE
Masters Gallery, Calgary
Private Collection, Calgary

LITERATURE
Peter White, Sybil Andrews: Colour Linocuts, Glenbow Museum, 1982, reproduced page 36, catalogue #25
Lora S. Urbanelli, The Grosvenor School: British Linocuts Between the Wars, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1988, reproduced page 21
Stephen Coppel, Linocuts of the Machine Age, 1995, reproduced page 113, catalogue #SA25
Hana Leaper, Sybil Andrews Linocuts: A Complete Catalogue, Osborne Samuel Gallery, 2015, same image reproduced page 72

Sybil Andrews was a part of England's Grosvenor School of printmakers working in linocut in the 1930s. This medium, made from powdered cork, rosin and linseed oil with a canvas backing, had a resilient yet soft surface that facilitated the cutting of bold lines. Colour applied to the linoleum sheet and then hand-rubbed onto the paper gave the print a unique texture due to the linoleum's grainy surface. This fine linocut was executed during the time Andrews shared a studio with Cyril Power in Hammersmith in London. Her early life was spent at Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, resulting in her depiction of rural images such as this. Otter Hunt is an action-filled, complex image in which Andrews creates a vortex of activity of dogs and man around a dark centre where the otter is hiding. Through the use of repeating shapes, curvilinear lines and a simple, stylized approach to form, Andrews creates a visual intensity that communicates the excitement of the hunt.

Stephen Coppel notes: from an edition 60 plus 1 unnumbered colour proof and 1 single-colour proof (in black of 4th block). Early impressions on buff oriental laid tissue; later printings on thickish oriental paper. This is a fine impression on oriental laid tissue.

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