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THE MONTH OF DECEMBER: FETCHING HOLLY

© Estate of Stanley Spencer. All Rights Reserved 2023 / Bridgeman Images

THE MONTH OF DECEMBER: FETCHING HOLLY 1926

Sir Stanley Spencer (1891 – 1959)

Details

Dimension
51 X 42 CM
Media
INK ON PAPER, SQUARED UP FOR ENLARGEMENT
Accession number
P2751

Summary

In 1926 Spencer was commissioned by Chatto & Windus to provide 25 pen and ink drawings on domestic and pastoral themes for A Chatto & Windus Alamanack for 1927. Spencer had completed most of the drawings by May of that year and the Almanack was published in October. The works were printed at the Curwen Press,London in an edition of 3,000 with paper covers and 250 in a de luxe edition. Public reaction to the publication was at first mixed, but newspaper reviews were uniformally favourable, describing the drawings as ‘impish and attractive’, ‘charming’ and ‘delightful’.

Most of the drawings were sold or given away. Some, like the work here, were squared up for eventual transfer to canvas; Spencer frequently used old studies in this way, recycling them when the design fitted into a new scheme. Two copies of the Almanack, annotated in Spencer’s hand, are held in the Tate archives. Chatto & Windus republished the Alamanckin 1983.

 

Glossary

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.

  • Edition

    All copies of a book, print, portfolio, sculpture, etc., issued or produced at one time or from a single set of type. Printed works can be made in an edition of between one and many thousands of copies. With most printing techniques the plate or screen will become worn if very many prints are made, so to maintain quality (and exclusivity) editions of original prints are usually kept below one hundred copies and normally average between thirty and fifty copies. Prints made up of several different plates can be extremely complicated and time-consuming to edition, so in these cases editions are kept low for practical reasons. Sculptural editions are a set of cast sculptures taken from the same mould or master. These editions are usually much lower, consisting of no more than six casts. Though each cast in an edition might have a lower value than a unique piece, it may be a more effective way of offsetting costs of an expensive process such as bronze casting.