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Radnorshire Fine Arts Ltd
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John Petts - The Sower / Linocut 1938
John Petts – The Sower (1938)
Linocut with watercolour on smooth white paper, with printed text on the reverse of the sheet. Signed and inscribed by the artist in pencil with the title signature and date. Framed and glazed.
John Petts was born in Hornsey, London on 10 January 1914, the son of Ernest Petts (1881-1957), a tailor and gentleman's outfitter and an amateur magician and entertainer, and his wife Alice Selina Wade (1892-1930) who ran a florist business and created cakes and treats for children's parties.
John Petts suffered from curvature of the spine, and spent a great deal of his childhood in bed, unable to attend school. After recovering he attended Tollington Grammar School, Muswell Hill, where he developed a passion for art and literature. He was awarded a Saturday morning scholarship at Hornsey School of Art aged 15 and enrolled as a full time student to study painting in 1930. He received a National Diploma in Painting and a two year British Institution scholarship to study at the Royal Academy in 1933, supplementing his income by modelling in the art schools to fund evening classes in printing at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.
The death of his mother in 1930 affected him greatly, and his father's remarriage in 1932 created increasing tension within the family, and he moved out to live with his father's sister Maude (1878-1977), severing all connection with his father and siblings Ernest and Joy until his later years but maintained contact with his younger brother Peter.
It was during this time that he met the artist and writer Brenda Chamberlain (1912-1971) a student at the Academy. They abandoned their studies, married on 11 May 1935 at Kensington Registry Office and set up home at Ty'r Mynydd near Llanllechid, North Wales. They aimed to be self-sufficient and to live by their art, taking any kind of artistic work that came their way. They held their first joint exhibition in Bangor in 1936 and another a year later. He started teaching an adult evening art class at Bangor in 1936 and created wood engravings and linocuts to sell as greeting cards. They bought a hand press in 1937 and founded the Caseg Press, hand printing and colouring greetings cards, bookplates and prints of local scenes and figures, and creating illustrations for literary magazines. In 1939 they were asked to create engravings to illustrate the Welsh Review and were soon contributing prints, short stories and articles for the publication. Petts began to receive regular commissions from the Reverend E. Curig Davies (1895-1981) to illustrate Gwybod, a general knowledge magazine, and his books Storiau am Annibynwyr (1939), and Y Morwr a'r Merthyr (1940). The National Library of Wales also began to buy their prints for its collection from 1939, and by 1940 his skills as an engraver were beginning to be recognised outside Wales.
He was a conscientious objector during the war and was sent to work on farms around the country, leaving Brenda struggling to manage the Press, looking after Peter, his younger brother who had been evacuated from London and working as a mountain guide for the Red Cross.
During the war the poet Alun Lewis (1915-1944) contacted them, and following a meeting in 1941, came up with the idea of producing bilingual broadsheets combining Welsh poetry and engraving. Six 'Caseg broadsheets' were produced during 1941-2, and another 2 were prepared but not published.
Their different experiences during the war and their differing goals and creative rivalry put a strain on their marriage and they separated in 1943 and divorced in 1947. Following their separation, Petts volunteered to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps' Parachute Field Ambulance resuscitation unit in Europe and the Middle East in 1944. He assisted in the publication of the unit's history, Red Cross Devils and Over the Rhine (1946). He transferred to the Army Educational Corps on accepting a position as lecturer in Artistic Studies at the Army Formation College in Palestine to teach life drawing, wood-engraving, lettering and printing. In 1945 he was made art editor of educational publications in the General Headquarters in Cairo.
His artistic work had come to the attention of the Golden Cockerel Press and he was commissioned to illustrate Gwyn Jones' novel The Green Island in 1945, and he returned to Wales at the end of 1946 to re-establish the Caseg Press. He had met Marjory (Kusha) Miller (1921-2003), an artist and writer, in 1944, and they married in March 1947. They had 2 sons and a daughter, David (born c. 1947), Catrin (born 1950) and Michael (born 1957). They divorced in 1984.
Petts was employed as a designer to develop the Lloyd George Museum at Llanystumdwy in 1947 and installed his printing equipment in the museum, where he designed and printed catalogues and greeting cards for the museum, and Kusha wove bags to be sold in the shop. Jonah Jones, an army colleague helped him re-establish Caseg Press, purchasing new equipment, developing colour printing, and producing a wider range of commercial material. The Press was supplemented by a variety of commissions for illustrations for books such as Alun Lewis' In the Green Tree (1949), Cledwyn Hughes' A Wanderer in North Wales (1949) and Gwyn Williams' Against Women (1953) and In Defence of Women (1960). He also experimented with book publishing, and published Susanna and the Elders, (1948), and Sauna (1949). His next book, 'Woodcuts of Wales' was not completed due to the technical constraints of the press, the ill-health of Jonah Jones, and the increase in purchase tax on luxury goods, and the Caseg Press ended about 1951 due to financial difficulties.
He was appointed Visual Arts Assistant to the Welsh Committee of the Arts Council in 1951 and became Assistant Regional Director in 1952. The family had moved to Aberthaw by 1952. He was elected to the Society of Wood Engravers in 1953 and awarded membership of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers & Engravers in 1961. He also served on the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1958 to 1961 and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1966. He had hoped to continue engraving in his spare time but found that this work at the Arts Council took up too much of his time, and resigned in 1956, and moved with his family to Lansteffan, where he converted the cowshed into a workshop, to enable him to spend more time creating his own work.
John Petts was appointed lecturer in design and crafts at Carmarthen School of Art in 1957, where he had the opportunity to master stained glass design, a craft which had long held a fascination for him. He saw a close connection between wood engraving and stained glass: 'Wood engraving almost forces you to be a powerful designer because you have strong black lines … Similarly with stained glass, you have to create a holding framework of black shapes in lead and steel which are filled with coloured glass. You discover what you've already learnt in wood-engraving, that your best friend is jet black the absence of light is necessary for colour to show up.' He rapidly taught himself the techniques of stained glass work whilst keeping one step ahead of his students, but resigned in 1961 to embark on a career as freelance designer and began to gain a reputation in the field of church stained glass.
John Petts was proud to follow in the long tradition of stained glass dating back to the medieval period and was conscious of the fact that the windows would outlast him. He would only use antique mouth-blown glass and exploited the slight variations in colour to create added vibrancy. His aim in all his commissions was to produce work that was personal to the donor, but that would also suit the church in which it was to be installed. He received many commissions, and his work is found in Roman Catholic, Anglican and Nonconformist churches across south Wales, with important works at Gorseinon, Penarth, Llansteffan, Fishguard and Brecon, as well as Brighton and Hove New Synagogue. He instigated the creation and funding of his celebrated window for the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which was paid for by donations from the people of Wales as a gift to the church after the attack by the Ku Klux Klan that killed four black girls on their way to Sunday school in 1963.
He expressed his faith and theological explorations through his craft and hoped to provoke the viewer to explore and express their own faith. "My concern, first and last, has been what the glass should say, in its own language and its context of worship, proclaiming the News." As a Christian, humility was central to his art, and it was not a vehicle for the artist to flaunt his inner self.
John Petts was a quiet and very religious man, who passionately loved Wales and the Welsh people around him, and remained in Wales for the rest of his life. He married his third wife Anna Brignell in 1985 and moved his studio to an old workhouse in Abergavenny, where he died on 26 August 1991. His archives are at the National Library of Wales.
Author
Morfudd Nia Jones
Collections
National Museum of Wales National Library of Wales University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Newport Art Gallery & Museum University College, Cardiff University of Texas, Austin, USA Friendship House, Birmingham, Alabama, USA University of Alabama, Birmingham, USA Welsh Arts Council American Dental Association, Chicago Contemporary Art Society for Wales Derby Art Gallery University of Hong Kong.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
PayPal /Card transactions can be processed through PayPal on our company website. We also accept payment by cheque and bank transfer. Deferred payments can be accepted over an agreed period of time whilst paintings remain with us.
CONDITION AND PRESENTATION
In our description, if a picture is shown to be framed then the frame will be included with the sale of the picture. Unless stated otherwise all unframed watercolours, drawings and prints have been mounted onto acid-free conservation board using either Japanese hinging paper or reversible wheat starch past. Unframed and mounted pictures are then wrapped in clear polyester film to protect both the picture and the mount. All conservation work has been carried out by accredited conservators.
SellerRadnorshire Fine Arts Ltd
View all stock from
Radnorshire Fine Arts Ltd
Private dealer
By appointment only
Powys
Mid Wales
Tel : 01597 272 439
Non UK callers : +44 1597 272 439
Linocut with watercolour on smooth white paper, with printed text on the reverse of the sheet. Signed and inscribed by the artist in pencil with the title signature and date. Framed and glazed.
John Petts was born in Hornsey, London on 10 January 1914, the son of Ernest Petts (1881-1957), a tailor and gentleman's outfitter and an amateur magician and entertainer, and his wife Alice Selina Wade (1892-1930) who ran a florist business and created cakes and treats for children's parties.
John Petts suffered from curvature of the spine, and spent a great deal of his childhood in bed, unable to attend school. After recovering he attended Tollington Grammar School, Muswell Hill, where he developed a passion for art and literature. He was awarded a Saturday morning scholarship at Hornsey School of Art aged 15 and enrolled as a full time student to study painting in 1930. He received a National Diploma in Painting and a two year British Institution scholarship to study at the Royal Academy in 1933, supplementing his income by modelling in the art schools to fund evening classes in printing at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.
The death of his mother in 1930 affected him greatly, and his father's remarriage in 1932 created increasing tension within the family, and he moved out to live with his father's sister Maude (1878-1977), severing all connection with his father and siblings Ernest and Joy until his later years but maintained contact with his younger brother Peter.
It was during this time that he met the artist and writer Brenda Chamberlain (1912-1971) a student at the Academy. They abandoned their studies, married on 11 May 1935 at Kensington Registry Office and set up home at Ty'r Mynydd near Llanllechid, North Wales. They aimed to be self-sufficient and to live by their art, taking any kind of artistic work that came their way. They held their first joint exhibition in Bangor in 1936 and another a year later. He started teaching an adult evening art class at Bangor in 1936 and created wood engravings and linocuts to sell as greeting cards. They bought a hand press in 1937 and founded the Caseg Press, hand printing and colouring greetings cards, bookplates and prints of local scenes and figures, and creating illustrations for literary magazines. In 1939 they were asked to create engravings to illustrate the Welsh Review and were soon contributing prints, short stories and articles for the publication. Petts began to receive regular commissions from the Reverend E. Curig Davies (1895-1981) to illustrate Gwybod, a general knowledge magazine, and his books Storiau am Annibynwyr (1939), and Y Morwr a'r Merthyr (1940). The National Library of Wales also began to buy their prints for its collection from 1939, and by 1940 his skills as an engraver were beginning to be recognised outside Wales.
He was a conscientious objector during the war and was sent to work on farms around the country, leaving Brenda struggling to manage the Press, looking after Peter, his younger brother who had been evacuated from London and working as a mountain guide for the Red Cross.
During the war the poet Alun Lewis (1915-1944) contacted them, and following a meeting in 1941, came up with the idea of producing bilingual broadsheets combining Welsh poetry and engraving. Six 'Caseg broadsheets' were produced during 1941-2, and another 2 were prepared but not published.
Their different experiences during the war and their differing goals and creative rivalry put a strain on their marriage and they separated in 1943 and divorced in 1947. Following their separation, Petts volunteered to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps' Parachute Field Ambulance resuscitation unit in Europe and the Middle East in 1944. He assisted in the publication of the unit's history, Red Cross Devils and Over the Rhine (1946). He transferred to the Army Educational Corps on accepting a position as lecturer in Artistic Studies at the Army Formation College in Palestine to teach life drawing, wood-engraving, lettering and printing. In 1945 he was made art editor of educational publications in the General Headquarters in Cairo.
His artistic work had come to the attention of the Golden Cockerel Press and he was commissioned to illustrate Gwyn Jones' novel The Green Island in 1945, and he returned to Wales at the end of 1946 to re-establish the Caseg Press. He had met Marjory (Kusha) Miller (1921-2003), an artist and writer, in 1944, and they married in March 1947. They had 2 sons and a daughter, David (born c. 1947), Catrin (born 1950) and Michael (born 1957). They divorced in 1984.
Petts was employed as a designer to develop the Lloyd George Museum at Llanystumdwy in 1947 and installed his printing equipment in the museum, where he designed and printed catalogues and greeting cards for the museum, and Kusha wove bags to be sold in the shop. Jonah Jones, an army colleague helped him re-establish Caseg Press, purchasing new equipment, developing colour printing, and producing a wider range of commercial material. The Press was supplemented by a variety of commissions for illustrations for books such as Alun Lewis' In the Green Tree (1949), Cledwyn Hughes' A Wanderer in North Wales (1949) and Gwyn Williams' Against Women (1953) and In Defence of Women (1960). He also experimented with book publishing, and published Susanna and the Elders, (1948), and Sauna (1949). His next book, 'Woodcuts of Wales' was not completed due to the technical constraints of the press, the ill-health of Jonah Jones, and the increase in purchase tax on luxury goods, and the Caseg Press ended about 1951 due to financial difficulties.
He was appointed Visual Arts Assistant to the Welsh Committee of the Arts Council in 1951 and became Assistant Regional Director in 1952. The family had moved to Aberthaw by 1952. He was elected to the Society of Wood Engravers in 1953 and awarded membership of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers & Engravers in 1961. He also served on the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1958 to 1961 and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1966. He had hoped to continue engraving in his spare time but found that this work at the Arts Council took up too much of his time, and resigned in 1956, and moved with his family to Lansteffan, where he converted the cowshed into a workshop, to enable him to spend more time creating his own work.
John Petts was appointed lecturer in design and crafts at Carmarthen School of Art in 1957, where he had the opportunity to master stained glass design, a craft which had long held a fascination for him. He saw a close connection between wood engraving and stained glass: 'Wood engraving almost forces you to be a powerful designer because you have strong black lines … Similarly with stained glass, you have to create a holding framework of black shapes in lead and steel which are filled with coloured glass. You discover what you've already learnt in wood-engraving, that your best friend is jet black the absence of light is necessary for colour to show up.' He rapidly taught himself the techniques of stained glass work whilst keeping one step ahead of his students, but resigned in 1961 to embark on a career as freelance designer and began to gain a reputation in the field of church stained glass.
John Petts was proud to follow in the long tradition of stained glass dating back to the medieval period and was conscious of the fact that the windows would outlast him. He would only use antique mouth-blown glass and exploited the slight variations in colour to create added vibrancy. His aim in all his commissions was to produce work that was personal to the donor, but that would also suit the church in which it was to be installed. He received many commissions, and his work is found in Roman Catholic, Anglican and Nonconformist churches across south Wales, with important works at Gorseinon, Penarth, Llansteffan, Fishguard and Brecon, as well as Brighton and Hove New Synagogue. He instigated the creation and funding of his celebrated window for the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which was paid for by donations from the people of Wales as a gift to the church after the attack by the Ku Klux Klan that killed four black girls on their way to Sunday school in 1963.
He expressed his faith and theological explorations through his craft and hoped to provoke the viewer to explore and express their own faith. "My concern, first and last, has been what the glass should say, in its own language and its context of worship, proclaiming the News." As a Christian, humility was central to his art, and it was not a vehicle for the artist to flaunt his inner self.
John Petts was a quiet and very religious man, who passionately loved Wales and the Welsh people around him, and remained in Wales for the rest of his life. He married his third wife Anna Brignell in 1985 and moved his studio to an old workhouse in Abergavenny, where he died on 26 August 1991. His archives are at the National Library of Wales.
Author
Morfudd Nia Jones
Collections
National Museum of Wales National Library of Wales University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Newport Art Gallery & Museum University College, Cardiff University of Texas, Austin, USA Friendship House, Birmingham, Alabama, USA University of Alabama, Birmingham, USA Welsh Arts Council American Dental Association, Chicago Contemporary Art Society for Wales Derby Art Gallery University of Hong Kong.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
PayPal /Card transactions can be processed through PayPal on our company website. We also accept payment by cheque and bank transfer. Deferred payments can be accepted over an agreed period of time whilst paintings remain with us.
CONDITION AND PRESENTATION
In our description, if a picture is shown to be framed then the frame will be included with the sale of the picture. Unless stated otherwise all unframed watercolours, drawings and prints have been mounted onto acid-free conservation board using either Japanese hinging paper or reversible wheat starch past. Unframed and mounted pictures are then wrapped in clear polyester film to protect both the picture and the mount. All conservation work has been carried out by accredited conservators.
Price The price has been listed in British Pounds.
Conversion rates as of 28/NOV/2024. Euro & Dollar prices will vary and should only be used as a guide.
Always confirm final price with dealer. SOLD
DimensionsSheet: 6 5/8 x 5 5/8 in. (16.9 x 14.2 cm.)
Window of Mount: 5 1/2 x 4 3/8 in. (14 x 11 cm.)
Frame: 13 x 11 5/8 in. (33 x 29.6 cm.)
Category Antique Pictures / Engravings / Art
Date 1938
1940s Antiques Material Paper
Origin Welsh
Condition Very good. This picture has been cleaned and mounted and is displayed in a new frame. All work has been carried out by accredited paper conservators and framers.
Item code as176a804
Status Sold
£0 
$0.00 
€0.00 
$
€
Conversion rates as of 28/NOV/2024. Euro & Dollar prices will vary and should only be used as a guide.
Always confirm final price with dealer. SOLD
Shipping information
All our prices include FREE packing and delivery within the UK.
If you live outside the UK and you wish to purchase a painting, please contact us by phone or e-mail for further details concerning shipping costs.
If you live outside the UK and you wish to purchase a painting, please contact us by phone or e-mail for further details concerning shipping costs.
Terms and conditions
Returns and Complaints
Great care and trouble has been taken to ensure that all details written for every picture are correct and the photos are of sufficient quality so that each item can be viewed in detail. If the purchaser can find a fault (by way of a photograph) as proof of damage in transit that is not present in our promotional photo i.e. a tear in the canvas, broken glass, broken frame, damage to surface of picture, then a full or part refund will be offered back to the purchaser depending on the extent of the damage. This will only apply within 24 hours of signing for the parcel.
If the parcel has arrived and appears to be damaged in some way please return the parcel to us (unopened) and we will refund the purchase price on receipt of the picture.
If the purchaser can prove with written evidence from three independent experts that our description was false or misleading in any way then a full refund will be offered back to the purchaser.
Every effort has been made to give our clients complete confidence and satisfaction when buying from our company.
Great care and trouble has been taken to ensure that all details written for every picture are correct and the photos are of sufficient quality so that each item can be viewed in detail. If the purchaser can find a fault (by way of a photograph) as proof of damage in transit that is not present in our promotional photo i.e. a tear in the canvas, broken glass, broken frame, damage to surface of picture, then a full or part refund will be offered back to the purchaser depending on the extent of the damage. This will only apply within 24 hours of signing for the parcel.
If the parcel has arrived and appears to be damaged in some way please return the parcel to us (unopened) and we will refund the purchase price on receipt of the picture.
If the purchaser can prove with written evidence from three independent experts that our description was false or misleading in any way then a full refund will be offered back to the purchaser.
Every effort has been made to give our clients complete confidence and satisfaction when buying from our company.
View all stock from
Radnorshire Fine Arts Ltd
Private dealerBy appointment only
Powys
Mid Wales
Tel : 01597 272 439
Non UK callers : +44 1597 272 439
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