Author Description

Simon Brett is one of the leading makers of illustrations and prints in wood engraving in the English-speaking world. This book gathers together both the commissioned, illustrational work and his independent prints. Through travelling, he heard of the swinging cities from far away in New Mexico and Provence. 1960s idealism, '70s materialism, 1980s famine fatigue - the withdrawal of faith - are all filtered through the conjunction of classic art and the appropriationist approaches of modernism, as well as through his devotion to the irreducible art of the engraver. Commissioned illustration is a central part of this. It requires a sense of literature and history, but also calls on the modern moral sensibility of the artist.