$375
The Farmer’s Daughter
MENPES, Mortimer
Drypoint (possibly etching) printed in black on F.J.H. Menpes laid paper, n.d. Edition unknown, but very likely small.Signed in pencil.
Mortimer MENPES
A significant figure in the Etching Revival movement, Mortimer Menpes (1855-1938) was born in Port Adelaide, South Australia. His formal art training began at the London School of Art in 1878, but meeting with James McNeill Whistler while on a sketching tour of Brittany would prove equally formative. The two artists shared a mutual fascination with Japanese design, but most significantly, Whistler is credited with teaching Menpes how to etch. Subsequently, Mortimer Menpes would produce and print more than seven hundred different etchings and drypoints. In 1888, Menpes designed, built, and decorated a Japanese-style house and studio in London's fashionable Cadogan Garden. Widely traveled and highly respected among his peers, Mortimer Menpes's star steadily ascended, his career blossomed, British society arrived to sit for their portraits, and the invitation to artistic soirées at his salon became a coveted prize. A founding member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, Menpes died in 1938. A definitive catalog raisonne in three volumes was compiled in 2012.