Alice Lush

 

Robert Sargent Austin

  1895 - 1973 (biography)

1928  

engraving 

13 1/2 x 10 7/16" platemark 

pencil, bottom center; initialed in plate in lower center 

"2nd trial state", a proof outside the published edition of 78 

dated in pencil and annotated "2nd trial state." 

Dodgson 80, state ii/iv 

antique-white laid with jester watermark. 

second trial state of four (ii/iv) 

Twenty-One Gallery 

21548 

$850.00 

This is a sensitive 1928 portrait by Austin of a woman named "Alice Lush" who might have been an English nurse, based on her uniform. During the Second World War Austin worked as a war artist recording the efforts of women in the Royal Air Force and in the nursing services for the War Artists' Advisory Committee. While emphasizing the face, right arm and hands of the subject Austin leaves a thin film of ink on the plate to surround the subject with a subtle, gray/green background, softening the sharp contrast of the engraving.. This impression is from the second of four states. The final state has lines added to the yoke of the uniform. The published edition of 78 was published by the Twenty-one Gallery, London, located on Mill St. The Twenty-one Gallery was founded by Molly Bernhard-Smith who was an artist and handled modern works by the likes of F.L. Griggs, A.R.A., the late Edgar Wilson, Robert Austin, R.E., Paul Drury, A.R.E., Graham Sutherland, A.R.E., and Austin Frederick, A.R.E. Austin's engraving line is often compared to the old masters. Campbell Dodgson, keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, who compiled the standard reference work on Austin's work, compared his work to that of Durer noting that Austin had 'more than a touch of that master in him' (Robert Austin, Twenty-One Gallery, 1930).