Wolfe (Edward, RA)

a proof print of plate 5 from the suite of 12, outside the edition of 250, originally conceived in gouache and ink on Chinese silver paper, around 1930, to illustrate a new translation by Louis Golding of the Song of Songs that was never published. Edward Wolfe (1897-1982) was born and raised in South Africa, but came to England in 1916, where he trained at the Slade until 1918. He subsequently met and worked with Roger Fry at the Omega Workshops, and became associated with the Bloomsbury Group. The dazzlingly colourful original work saw the light of day again in the  Arts Council’s ‘Edward Wolfe’ exhibition in 1967, from which time he thought to reproduce them in print form, though it took until two decades later for the technical difficulties of recreating them to full effect, and wide acclaim, to be overcome by Adrian Lack of the Senecio Press,

colour-printed offset lithograph on stiff silver-faced paper, 355 x 265 mm (14 x 10 3/8 in), proof plate with marginal registration marks and colour test strips, [provenance: Louise Hallett Gallery],