ArtistHowarthm Albany E.

Artist Years1872-1936

Artist NationalityEnglish, British

TitleChancery Lane (London)

Year1919

MediumPrint > Etching

DimensionsPlate: 9.8 X 12 inches

Accession Number925655

NotesEarly Career: Albany E. Howarth was born in the English County of Durham in 1872. His attraction to art and drawing started very early in life – Howarth mentions the age of five - and remembered that even during his schooldays, he became adept at caricaturing the masters of the school.

Howarth’s father was keen for him to go into business and follow a commercial career, but Howarth was opposed to the idea, preferring to pursue his artistic inclinations instead. Once he left school, he knew that he would like to study art, but apart from an occasional evening class he achieved proficiency by being mainly self taught.

His first job was working in the drawing offices of Armstrong Mitchell (Later Armstrong Whitworth) of Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne. Founded in1847 Armstrong Mitchell was the largest employer in the area, manufacturing armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and aircraft.

Howarth implied that this early career choice may have been a compromise between the wishes of his father and his own desire to draw, and to begin with, it may well have been an arrangement that suited both parties. However, in his own words, he ‘found it too mechanical’ and left the company after four years.

Continuing to develop drawing as a profession, he worked for a while illustrating various papers and periodicals in the North of England. This too was never destined to be a long standing career choice, as the job involved working demanding shifts from 8.00pm to 8.00am on at least two nights per week.

Expertise in Printing: One benefit that did emerge from this period was that Howarth was able to see how his drawings were reproduced using different methods of printing and as a result of this he began his own experiments with different techniques. He taught himself collotype, lithography and process engraving and this understanding of different printing formats and their characteristics would have been a major benefit when he began the commercial production of his own work.

Early Etchings: In 1903 Howarth read Phillip Gilbert Hamerton’s book on Etching and Etchers, originally published in 1868 and a leading source of information on the principles and techniques of etching. This was hugely influential for him, and he rapidly became fascinated with the possibilities of this different medium.

He describes his first efforts resulting in ‘lots of failures and scrapped plates to begin with’ a not unexpected result when learning a new craft. He goes on to say that he eventually produced 7 or 8 finished plates which he described as giving him ‘intense excitement’ but which were technically unfit for publication.

Early Unpublished Etchings: The Dowdeswells exhibition catalogue of 1912 lists six unpublished plates which date from this period. They include; Christiansborg Castle No.1 (1903 Etching and Aquatint), Christiansborg Castle No.2 (1903 Etching and Aquatint) Marble Bridge Copenhagen No.1 (1903 Etching) Archway, Virginia Water (1904 Etching), Strand on the Green Chiswick No.1 (1904 etching) and Road near Chateau Gaillard (1905 Etching). All of these remained unpublished, and the plates were subsequently destroyed, although as they were listed in the 1912 catalogue, it is possible that they were included in the exhibition as early examples of his work.

At this early stage of his career, and at least up to 1912 Howarth printed most of his plates himself, using his first press – an old star wheel design with a wooden bed. He used this to produce his first published plate in 1907 of Stirling Castle.
(source: wikipedia.org)

Price $275.00

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