printmaking, using wooden or metal plates, provided not only a means of producing multiple copies of a given work, but an alternative way of creating a visual image. Mezzotint engraving, where the surface of a plate was roughened to create tones and half‐tones, flourished in Ireland during the 18th century. The first artist to practise mezzotint in Dublin, the obscure Thomas Beard (active
c.1728), went there from London. Thomas Frye (1710–62), trained in his native Dublin, went to London early, and established himself as a portrait painter. Later turning to mezzotint, he published two impressive series of life‐size decorative heads in 1760–1. Captain William Baillie (1723–1810), born in Carlow, produced a small group of mezzotints, but is chiefly known as an etcher. In 1776 he reworked the original plate of Rembrandt's
Hundred Guilder Print.
The prolific John Brooks (active 1730–56) and his assistant Andrew Miller (d. 1763), both trained by Faber in London, started mezzotinting in Dublin in 1741, where their star pupil was James McArdell (1728/9–1765). McArdell left for London with Brooks in 1746, and quickly established himself, engraving over 200 plates, including 38 mezzotints after Reynolds, before his early death. Edward Fisher (1722–
c.1785) went to London early and may have worked in McArdell's studio. Other Brooks pupils combined artistic achievement with debauchery. Richard Houston (1721/2–1775), who followed his master to London after 1746 and became McArdell's main rival, engraving a good series of plates after Reynolds, spent time in the Fleet Prison. Charles Spooner, who went to London in 1752, died through habitual drunken brawling in 1767. Richard Purcell, active 1746–66 and lured to London in 1755, produced many plates but ended his short life in debt and living under a false name.
Back in Ireland Michael Ford (d. 1765) took over Brooks's shop in Cork Hill. His plates are all rare. Some of Robert West's pupils in the Dublin Society's Schools became outstanding mezzotinters. West taught through the medium of pastel, which has particular affinity with mezzotint scraping. One of his pupils, John Dixon (d. 1811), engraved John Rocque's
Map of County Dublin in 1760. Dixon moved to London about 1765, and engraved many mezzotints after Reynolds and Gainsborough. He moved in the circles of
Burke, Johnson, and Garrick. Another of West's pupils, James Watson (d. 1790), went immediately to London, where he probably learnt mezzotinting from McArdell. A perfectionist, he engraved 56 plates after Reynolds. His daughter Caroline made stipple engravings after Reynolds and others, and in 1785 was appointed Engraver to Queen Caroline. James
Barry, remembered more as a painter, was also one of the most original printmakers of his time. The etchings relating to his murals for the Royal Society of Arts in London, finished in 1783, rank as independent works of art.
Apart from the topographical aquatints by such artists as Jonathan Fisher (d. 1809) and Denis Sullivan, published in book form, the 19th century in Ireland has little to show in printmaking. The situation alters in the early 20th century, with the revival of wood engraving. Robert Gibbings (b. Cork 1889; d. London 1958) founded the Society of Wood Engravers and the Golden Cockerel Press, publishing many beautiful books. The Lady Mabel Annesley (b. in Castlewellan, Co. Down 1881; d. 1959) became a member of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1924. In 1932 and 1939 she presented the Belfast Museum with her fine collection of contemporary wood engravings before emigrating to New Zealand. John F. Hunter (1893–1951) and E. M. O'Rorke Dickey (1894–1977), while important art educators, were masters of woodcut and wood engraving.
Many 20th‐century painters or sculptors also made prints, including the southerners Harry Kernoff, Louis le Brocquy, Cecil King, Micheal Farrell, Patrick Hickey, Anne Yeats, John Behan, and Robert Ballagh, some of whom have collaborated with poets on folios. Comparable northerners include Colin Middleton, Roy Johnston, Felim Egan, Victor Sloan, and John Kindness. Specialist printmakers grew in number. Tim Mara (1948–97), professor of printmaking at the Royal College of Art from 1990, became one of the most skilled technical exponents of screenprinting in Britain. An important Irish‐American printmaker, Mary Farl Powers, died young in Dublin in 1992.
Bibliography
Chaloner Smith, J. , British Mezzotinto Portraits, 4 vols. (1878–83)
Mara, T. , Thames and Hudson Technical Manual of Screen Printing (1979)
Wax, C. , The Mezzotint (1990)
Martyn Anglesea
