Robert Sargent Austin
Robert Sargent Austin
The Letter, 1937/38
Robert Sargent Austin (1895 – 1973)
line engraving on cream wove paper watermarked O.W.P.& A.C.L, edition of 150
plate 13.5 x 10.2 cm; sheet 26.5 x 21.5 cm
signed and dated in pencil lower centre.
Exhibited: Prints and Drawings by Robert Austin R.A. (1895-1973), Royal Academy of Arts , London, 29th May – 25th October 2009, cat. no. 36 (another example).
Other notes: Other examples of this work are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Accession number E.534-2007; The British Museum, London, Museum number 1939,0410.84 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Accession Number: 67.809.26 ánd Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, Accession Number B1994.4.653.
$600
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‘The Letter’ is one of the finest of all of Robert Sargent Austin’s ingenious and highly finished line engravings. ‘The Letter’ was designed as a touching allegory, the secret of its emotive import expressed only by the tender manner in which the letter itself is held by its reader. The sitter for this composition was Mrs. Bernhard Smith, owner of the Twenty One Gallery and publisher of R.S. Austin’s prints for many years – she is seen here in her cottage at St. Nicholas at Wade, near Birchington in Kent.
Robert Sargent Austin was born in Leicester, England in 1895. Austin studied at Leicester Municipal School of Art from 1909 to 1913. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London in 1914, but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of war. He served as a gunner in the trenches of the Western Front. He returned to the College in 1919 when he studied etching and was awarded a scholarship in engraving to study in Italy. While there, he met and married writer Ada May Harrison. The couple returned to England in 1926, and Austin began teaching at the Royal College of Art. In 1927 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. During the Second World War Austin worked as a war artist. After the war he returned to teaching at the Royal College of Art as Professor of Engraving. In 1949 he was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy.
Austins work is represented in major public collections in Great Brition. USA and Australia. A major retrospective exhibition of Austin’s prints and drawings was shown at the Royal Academy, London in 2009.