Gibbings attended both the Slade and Noel Rooke’s wood engraving classes at the Central for two or three years before serving in the army. When he was invalided out in 1918 he set up as a freelance wood engraver. “ I began to appreciate the cleanness of the white line incised; even the simplest silhouettes had an austere quality, a dignity that could not be achieved by other means.”. In 1920 Gibbings was a founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers, and from 1924 to 1933 he owned and ran the Golden Cockerel Press.

This is a prime example of Gibbings’ ‘vanishing line’ technique. The outline of the figure is not defined by line, other than in the boundary of one area of highlight with shadow; the eye naturally completes the shape by implication. Empson 17. The block initialled. On white wove paper.