Wood engravings | Barbara Howard's Unfolding Visual World
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Barbara Howard's Unfolding Visual World

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Wood engravings

In 1960 Barbara Howard added wood engraving to her repertoire of media when she and her husband, the poet Richard Outram, launched the Gauntlet Press. For 30 years she produced small engravings in collaboration with Outram's poems, publishing numerous small books and broadsides. Together they printed the work on a small Adana letterpress, then Howard bound the books by hand. These books are prized by collectors and can be found in many public collections such as the National Library of Canada, the Library of Congress, the British Library, the University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and the Rare Books Collection of the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Writing about Howard's wood engravings in her 2006 essay for Canadian Art, titled Barbara Howard's Ecologies, the artist, curator and academic Martha Fleming states: 

"Wood engraving is a demanding process, and Howard was a virtuoso. [The creatures she portrayed] echo the floating, frameless engravings pioneered by Thomas Bewick in the 18th century, and yet they are startlingly modern. As much about form as they are about anatomical accuracy, they hover at the brink of typology but have nothing of zoological rendering's reduction to taxonomy. Her counterintuitive use of colour upholds the monochrome dignity inherent in the technique."


Locus2

pages from Locus

Monarch in Autumn copy

pages from Locus

Creatures

pages from Creatures

Kindness

pages from Kindness

Locus02

pages from Locus

Thresholds02

pages from Thresholds

Arbor4

pages from Arbor

Locus04

pages from Locus

Beech

Beech

Birch

Birch

Cat basking.jpg

Cat sleeping

Columbine

Columbine

Lobster

Crayfish

Crocus

Crocus

Crow Walking

Crow Walking

Crow.jpg

Crow

Dahlia.jpg

Dahlia

Daylily

Daylily

Dove

Dove

Dragonflies

Dragonflies

Eclipse.jpg

Eclipse

Feather

Feather

Fishes.jpg

Fishes

Mating Frogs

Frogs

Giraffe Running

Giraffe Running

Goldfish

Goldfish

Gourami.jpg

Gourami

Sun Lion.jpg

Heraldic Lion

Humpback Whale

Humpback Whale

Iris and Rose

Iris and Rose

Broadsheet for Gardener

Broadsheet for Gardener

Jack in Pulpit.jpg

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Jimson.jpg

Jimson

Lily

Lily

Lion.jpg

Lioness

Lions.jpg

Lion and Lioness

Loon in Flight

Loon in Flight

Swallow.jpg

Martlet

Mermaid

Mermaid

Monarch

Monarch

Mushroom

Mushroom

Flowers.jpg

Narcissi

Otter 1

Otter 1

Otter.jpg

Otter 2

Phoenix

Phoenix

Poppy

Poppy

Yin Yang.jpg

River image

Rosebud.jpg

Rosebud

Salamander.jpg

Salamander

Sea-Urchin

Sea-Urchin

Seal Dream.jpg

Seal

Shell 2

Shell #1

Shell 1

Shell #2

Snake 1

Snake 1

Snake

Snake 2

Sparrow.jpg

Sparrow

Spider

Spider

Sun and Water

Sun and Water

Tawny Owl

Tawny Owl

Lovers.jpg

Two Figures #1

Lovers 2.jpg

Two Figures #2

Tulip

Tulip

Fish

Shiner

Bookplate by BH

Bookplate


© Estate of Barbara Howard 2013
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