Established in a career as an illustrator and printmaker, Gibbings' purchase and directorship from 1924-33 of the Golden Cockerel Press was of profound importance to the evolution of English 20th-century book design. He controlled every detail of the design and manufacture of seventy-two books. Forty-eight were illustrated with wood engravings, nineteen by his work, nine by Eric Gill, and the balance by thirteen other artists. Gibbings continued his prolific

output as a freelance engraver and in 1938 was made art director for the Penguin series of illustrated Classics. In this position he commissioned work by the leading wood engravers of the period. His own later wood engravings may be seen in books such as Sweet Thames Run Softly (Dent 1940), Coming Down the Seine (Dent 1953), Till I End My Song (Dent 1957).

Edition 200. Signed in pencil and initialed in the block, lower right.

Image size 9 x 8 1/2 inches (228 x 216 mm); sheet size 14 x 11 1/2 inches (356 x 292 mm).

A fine, black impression, on cream Japan, with full margins (1 1/2 to 3 inches). Glue remains in the top left and right sheet corners, verso, well away from the image, otherwise in excellent condition.

The 1936 Presentation Print of The Woodcut Society of Kansas City. Illustrated in James Swann: In Quest of a Printmaker, Czestochowski, 1990.

Collections: British Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

$450.