Fine art prints

Information

Edition version: 1

Limited edition: 100

Edition available: 90/100

Size: x cm x cm

Paper: Japanese paper in Sepia

Ink: Black (water based)

March 10, 2020

Inspiration

This print was created to mark 200 years since the birth of Herman Melville inspired by his most famous fictional creation, Moby-Dick.

Bookmarking Book Art – “Very Like a Whale”, the Bodleian Bibliographical Press’s Exhibition

For the 200th anniversary of Herman Melville’s birth (1819), the Bodleian’s Bibliographical Press invited letterpress printers and artists to claim one of the eighty prefatory “Extracts” from Moby-Dick (1851) and create an artwork in response.

The Blackwell Hall exhibition case accommodates thirty of the eighty contributors‘ artworks, plus the rare three-volume version of the novel published by Richard Bentley in London as The Whale before Harper & Brothers issued it in November 1851 in New York as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. Here are just four of the outstanding prints among the several artforms on display.

Extract 65: ‘Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.’ ─ Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett
Linocut on Japanese paper, printed on 1828 Albion press at the Oxford Printmakers Cooperative Workshop.

William Rowsell’s linocut represents the more traditional entries in the exhibition. Capturing the furious struggle expressed in the extract, he locks whale, man, boat, sea, cloud and sky into a vigorous, swirling image on a paper and in a style that evoke the century in which Moby-Dick is set. As he pulled his prints from the 1828 Albion printing press, William might have wondered what the nine-year old Herman Melville was doing when hands were first laid on that Albion.

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Print process

Linocut printed on the Albion Press at Oxford Printmakers.

I initially drew 3 cartoons in rough using a brush pen in black and white. Then I transferred the final drawing on to lino board using transfer paper. Then I spent 2 days cutting away the image from the lino board. The print was printed in water based inks on the Albion press in The Oxford Printmakers studio. There are currently 2 editions on sepia and white paper. I plan to do more editions experimenting with other coloured and textured papers in a range of other colours. Watch this space. If you have a color way you would like a special copy in, feel free to contact me to commission one off prints.