{"id":9587,"date":"2018-10-22T09:22:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T08:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=9587"},"modified":"2020-09-04T15:25:18","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T14:25:18","slug":"ra250-anne-desmet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/2018\/10\/22\/ra250-anne-desmet\/","title":{"rendered":"RA250: Anne Desmet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anne Desmet is one of 7 Royal Academicians, who have connections with Cambridge, taking part in RA250<\/a> at the Fitz.\u00a0 We asked each to pick a work in our collection that has inspired them and tell us why.<\/h2>\n
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Anne Desmet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anne chose a woodcut, made in 1918 by Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949) which has in turn inspired many of her own wood engravings, including Olympic Stadium with Cranes I<\/em> (2010).\u00a0 Both are on display in a floor cabinet in Gallery 6.\u00a0 Here, Desmet explains why she chose this work:<\/p>\n

“2018 marks 100 years since the end of the First World War and 100 years since Wadsworth created this wonderful print. Wadsworth\u2019s Dazzle Ship engravings have long fascinated me because of their perfect balance between rigorously specific representation and an equally strong play of purely abstract, graphic, black and white lines and forms. There is admirable economy of mark: each crisply engraved cut is perfectly placed and emphatically necessary to the composition. You can\u2019t imagine adding or subtracting a single mark without lessening the print\u2019s impact. It is a great skill to know when to stop engraving before an image becomes over-complicated. Less can be more. These features of Wadsworth\u2019s Dazzle Ships have directly inspired the character of many of my own wood engravings including \u2018Olympic Stadium with Cranes I\u2019 (2010).”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Drydocked for scaling and painting. Camouflaged ship in dry dock.<\/em> Wadsworth, Edward Alexander (British, 1889-1949). Woodcut, black carbon ink on paper, height, image, 230 mm, width, image, 206 mm, height, sheet, 284 mm, width, sheet, 262 mm, 1918. Notes: This design was used for a poster advertising an exhibition of English graphic work, sponsored by the British Museum and the Board of Trade, in Zurich in 1923. Acquisition Credit: Purchased from the Sainsbury Trust Fund.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Olympic Stadium with Cranes 1<\/em> Anne Desmet. Courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A very fortunate group of people participated in a wood engraving workshop led by Anne Desmet on Saturday 29 September 2018, including our colleague Alison Ayres. Alison told us:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnne is clearly passionate about sharing her knowledge, experience and enthusiasm, for wood engraving.\u00a0She brought along an extensive range of her own tools, for the students to use,\u00a0and examples of her own wood blocks and books of prints which she was happy for people to handle. We visited the Print REbels exhibition to look at works\u00a0which\u00a0demonstrate different approaches to wood engraving, including Anne’s, Manhattan Sky<\/em>.\u00a0 Then back in the education studio we were given a detailed introduction to the tools and each student got to engrave 2 wood blocks:\u00a0 one box wood and the other lemon wood, and we were each able to make at least one print and take that and our blocks home.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another participant commented:\u00a0 \u201cI just want to say how enjoyable and rewarding\u00a0this event was. Anne is an excellent teacher and managed to pack a great deal into the day so we all went home with our very own wood engraving and a greater understanding of the technique. Although I\u2019ll never be much use as a wood engraver I will be able to admire the finer points of the engravings I come across.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anne Desmet\u2019s 2017 wood engraving and stencil Manhattan Sky<\/em> is featured in a temporary exhibition at the Fitzwilliam now showing until 6 January 2019:\u00a0\u00a0Print REbels:\u00a0 Haden, Palmer, Whistler and the origins of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers<\/a>.\u00a0 Anne is a member of this society and has been involved in the exhibition and accompanying book.\u00a0 The exhibition project celebrates 200 years since the birth of Sir Francis Seymour Haden who founded the RE. The entire exhibition was launched at Bankside Gallery, London, in April 2018 and a curated selection of about 30 of the exhibits is now showing at the Fitzwilliam Museum.<\/p>\n

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Manhattan Sky<\/em>
Anne Desmet. Courtesy of the artist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Find out more<\/a> about Anne Desmet RA\u2019s work. You can also see Desmet’s work in her London exhibition at LONG & RYLE,\u00a0Towards the Light, 11 October – 9 November 2018<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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This project, with Art Fund support, forms part of RA250 UK:\u00a0 Exhibitions and events around the UK to celebrate 250 years of the Royal Academy of Arts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne Desmet is one of 7 Royal Academicians, who have connections with Cambridge, taking part in RA250 at the Fitz.\u00a0 We asked each to pick a work in our collection that has inspired them and tell us why. Anne chose a woodcut, made in 1918 by Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949) which has in turn inspired many of her own wood engravings,… Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[369,156],"tags":[219,218],"coauthors":[276],"class_list":["post-9587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-museum-life","category-the-fitzwilliam-museum","tag-collections-engagement","tag-cultural-value"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9587"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9609,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9587\/revisions\/9609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9587"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}