Robert Gibbings

Born in Cork, Eire, Robert Gibbings studied medicine at University College, Cork. In October 1911 he entered the Slade, where he worked for three days a week. For the next two years he also attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts on a part-time basis, studying etching and, as one of Noel Rooke's first pupils in the Book Production Department, illustration including
wood engraving. As well as black and white prints, he also produced some colour wood engravings. In August 1914 he was commissioned in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, was wounded at Gallipoli, and invalided out in March 1918 with the rank of captain.

During the next few years Gibbings produced some of the most original and 'modernist' prints of the period, establishing himself among the leaders of the wood engraving movement. With nine other engravers, including Rooke, Sydney Lee, Lucien Pissarro,
Gwen Raverat, and John Nash, he helped to found the Society of Wood Engravers in 1920, becoming its first secretary. A request from Harold Taylor to illustrate for the Golden Cockerel Press led to his buying the press in January 1924 and moving to Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire. He controlled every detail of the design and manufacture of the books published under his directorship; of these seventy-two books, many of which contained wood engravings by leading artists, he illustrated nineteen himself. In 1930 he took up sculpture, his work at this time showing the influence of Eric Gill with whom he collaborated on some of the most successful books. Owing to financial difficulties, he sold the press to Christoper Sandford, Francis Newbery, and Owen
Rutter in 1933 but continued to illustrate for them.
From 1936 to 1942 he was lecturer in typographer and book production in the University of Reading under Professor Allen W. Seaby. He was appointed art editor for the new Penguin series of Illustrated Classics in 1938. Between 1939 to 1940 he explored the Thames in a flat-bottomed boat and produced fifty wood engravings for Sweet Thames Run Softly. Up till his death in January 1958, he wrote and illustrated several more books of memoirs and travel which were published by Dent.; JS
Author: JS