Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood

Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood
Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood
Born	6 April 1900; Leek, Staffordshire, England
Died	June 1977; Knowsley, England
Nationality	English
Known for	Engraving, drawing
Awards	Rome Scholarship in Engraving, British School at Rome (1925)
Elected	ARCA; ARE (1925); RE (1934)

Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood, ARCA, RE (6 April 1900 – June 1977) was a British etcher and engraver, best known for his architectural etchings.^[1]

Early life and education

Born in Leek, Staffordshire, the son of Jane and Frank Wedgwood, an engineer,^[2] but brought up in Liverpool, Wedgwood attended the Liverpool Institute^[3] and then served with the British Army in the First World War.^[1] From 1919 to 1921 he studied at the Liverpool City School of Art^[4]^[5] Winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London, he studied engraving there under Sir Frank Short and from 1924 under his successor Malcolm Osborne.^[6]

He was a Rome scholar at the British School at Rome, having won the Engraving Prize in 1925,^[7] the same year that Edward Irvine Halliday (1902–1984), a fellow Liverpudlian and also a former student at the RCA, won the Painting Prize.^[8] According to Edward Morris, writing in the Connoisseur, Wedgwood "reverted to architectural subjects; his line became harder and more precise; his effects clearer and sharper; less of his work was etched, more engraved; some of the credit for these effects must go to the printer, David Strang".^[9]

"In Wedgwood's architectural etchings", wrote Guichard, "the severity of the formal harmonies of square and rectangle in the roofs and walls of old buildings is relieved by gentle caricature in the small local figures that inhabit the scenes and are sympathetically observed."^[10]

Career

He later taught at the Liverpool Institute from 1932 to 1935 and at the Liverpool City School of Art from 1935 until his retirement in 1960.^[5]^[11]

He also worked as an illustrator. His etchings for menus were shown at the L.N.E.R. exhibition of poster art at Burlington Galleries in 1933.^[12] Among various projects for Martins Bank advertising in the early 1950s, he was commissioned together with J. C. Armitage (Ionicus) and F. G. Lodge, to do drawings of English stately homes.^[13]

Published works

Not complete

Roberts, Gruffydd Dewi (1935), The House that was forgotten, illus. by Geoffrey Wedgwood. London: Lovat Dickson & Thompson Limited OCLC 972865896
Roberts, Gruffydd Dewi (1937), Heron's Island, illus. by Geoffrey Wedgwood. London: Dent OCLC 810831172^[14]

Awards and honours

Winner of the Engraving Prize (1925) to be a scholar at the British School at Rome with two works: Negro Dentist and St Pancras Washhouse^[15]
Elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1925^[16] and a fellow in 1934.^[17]
Elected associate member of the Royal Cambrian Academy in 1942 and a full member in 1943. Wedgwood resigned his membership in 1958.^[18]

Exhibitions

Junior Workers' Guild exhibition, Mansard Gallery, London, 1925
Art Institute of Chicago: "International Exhibition of Contemporary Prints: A Century of Progress" 1 June to 1 November 1934: Outside the Walls engraving by Geoffrey Wedgwood exhibited (no. 136)
Sandon Music Room, Bluecoat Chambers, School Lane, Liverpool, 1944: "Pictures by Four Artists: N. Martin Bell; Edgar Grosvenor; Charles W. Sharpe; Geoffrey H. Wedgwood"^[19]
Contemporary British Prints and Drawings from the Wakefield Collection British Council touring exhibition, 1947–1950. An exhibition of prints and drawings from the Wakefield Collection selected by James Laver
Royal Academy (for example The Borghese Gardens, Rome, exhibited in the summer of 1929)
New English Art Club
Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, London^[20]
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool: "Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood", 2 February – 4 March 1972^[21]

Works in public collections

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago: Old Aldgate, n.d.
British Museum, London: Porta Capriana, Naples, 1931 (image not shown online)
British Council Collection: St Peter's, Genoa, line engraving, 1927, accession no. P2479
Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT: Old Aldgate, drypoint, 1924, accession no. 1937.D1.41
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis: S.S. Giovanni e Paolo, Rome, 1926, accession no. WU 3719
Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco: Works by Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis: Pincian Gardens, Rome, 1930
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Borghese Gardens, Rome, 1928, and The Fishmarket, Naples, 1929 (both etching and drypoint)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: The fishmarket, Naples, 1929, drypoint; Street scene, 1931, drypoint;
University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh: The Capitol, Rome, accession no. 72.1.16
University of Liverpool: several items^[22]
Victoria and Albert Museum: St Peter's, Genoa, accession no. E.859-1959

References

^ ^a ^b "Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood (1900 – 1977)". visualarts.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
^ Staffordshire baptismal records. Baptised 6 May 1900 at All Saints' Church, Leek. In the 1911 census, his father is listed as a tool-maker in telephone and telegraph instruments.
^ Liverpool Daily Post, 10 February 1942, p. 2.
^ Later Liverpool College of Art.
^ ^a ^b "Collection of works associated with Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood by Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood - Art Fund". artfund.org. Retrieved 2 September 2017. See also Bénézit, Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators, p. 546.
^ See George Worsley Adamson web site. See also Malcolm Osborne: L'Oiseau de Bourges.
^ Yorkshire Evening Post, 13 July 1925, "Latest News", p. 9.
^ See Compton, Ann: Edward Halliday: Art for Life, 1925-1939 (exh. cat. 24 October – 19 December 1997). Liverpool: University of Liverpool Art Gallery, ISBN 9780853239727, OCLC 499894827, p. 18.
^ See Connoisseur, vol. 180, no. 725, July 1972, p. 239. See William Strang's portrait of his son David on the William Strang page.
^ Guichard, Kenneth M. (1977), p. 66.
^ See also Morris, Edward (1972). Among Wedgwood's students was George Adamson, RE, See George Worsley Adamson web site. .
^ The Times, 16 March 1933, p. 12, stated they "should not be overlooked".
^ See Martins Bank Magazine, Spring 1951.
^ "Geoffrey Wedgwood's drawings brilliantly interpret the author's charming fantasy." Scotsman, 9 December 1937.
^ These were done in the "satirical genre style of Nixon and William Strang". See Connoisseur, vol. 180, no. 725, July 1972, p. 239.
^ "That year saw the election of one of the finest provincial engravers, Geoffrey Heath Wedgwood," wrote Martin Hopkinson (Hopkinson, Martin [1999]).
^ Now the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.
^ Royal Cambrian Academy members.
^ Liverpool Daily Post, 28 October 1944.
^ Scotsman, 1 April 1932, p. 12: "Geoffrey Wedgwood's prints are always charming and crowded in amusing detail. There is a prim decorative quality about his use of line that distinguishes him from the ordinary run of architectural etchers in the Muirhead Bone tradition. . . . Behind his work there lies, one feels, a shy, droll, intelligent personality."
^ In his review of the exhibition Edward Morris wrote: "Wedgwood was one of the first pupils to be able to study engraving alone for his diploma [at the RCA] and he profited from the vigorous manner of Job Nixon [1891–1938] rather than from the more refined, delicate approach of the Professor, Sir Frank Short." Connoisseur, vol. 180, no. 725, July 1972, p. 239.
^ University of Liverpool (1977).