Three new Ethel Spowers Prints :)

We’ve just added three beautiful prints to the Ethel Spowers collection.

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1. ‘School is out’  Linocut (1936). What better evocation of the release experienced when the bell finally rings, school is out and we are free to go? Spowers captures this feeling through the swinging of arms – it’s as if the children fly like birds from a cage – by use of the barking dog, exuberant at the children’s flight…

2. ‘Fox and Geese’ Linocut (1933). As with the other children’s images (also bought by plenty of adults for themselves) we have here a portrayal which captures the very essence of the children’s play: these are children filled with the exuberance, the sheer joy of play as they chase and run, and fling themselves over the rope.

3. ‘Tug of War Linocut’ (1933). It is no surprise that Spowers is recognized as a children’s book illustrator par excellence. Here she captures the strenuousness of exertion required for the tug, but the bystanders, the cheering others reflect by proxy this exertion too.