Women Engravers

Wood engraving, as practised by Thomas Bewick in the late 1700s, was for over a century the commonest means of illustrating printed work. It became a valued and lucrative skill, but its methods and techniques were guarded, and not available ot women. It was Bewick's son, not his daughters, who was apprenticed to the craft for seven years. Not until the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement, the gaining of womens franchise, and the establishment of engraving classes in art schools, did women come into their own as wood engravers. Many of the finest exponents of the art this century have been, and are, women. Best known is Gwen Raverat, whose memoir of her Cambridge Childhood, Period Piece, is a classic work. But there are numerous other equally fine wood engravers...