MR. DERRICK HARRIS 1919-1960.
by Brett, Simon.
Limited to 280 copies. Derrick Harris' (1919-1960) wood-engraved images appeared in the late 40's and the 50's in various Folio Society publications and other books, and in a number of BBC publications. His rather graceful and sprightly, decorative and stylized (with elements of folk art and 18th-century illustration), and often implacably cheerful images seem also to have anticipated much commercial art of the following decades, and Harris also designed posters, advertisements, magazine covers, etc. Harris' death by suicide suggests that the cheerfulness was in part an aesthetic phenomenon, and in that respect one of the most interesting illustrations reproduced here is that of an individual, not at all cheerful- or even friendly-looking, about to try on a mask. Harris was largely forgotten in the years following his death, and Garrett's 1978 History of British Wood Engraving makes no mention of him. The book by Simon Brett discusses the life and works of Derrick Harris, with about fifty reproductions, both large and small, of wood engravings by him. The sewn brochure contains three additional large engravings by Harris, and the folder contains a set of nine colored wood engravings done around 1946 for a never-published children's book entitled "Royal Flush" (the text is now lost). The whole is very well printed by Simon Lawrence, a long-time admirer of Harris' work, at the Fleece Press, using original blocks for the engravings. Slipcase is slightly bumped. Now out of print.

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