Wilkinson (Norman) Heavy Fish; A Spring Fish; Casting a Line; Waiting Patiently, four works, etchings with drypoint, all signed in pencil, each platemark between 200 x 250 mm (7 7/8 x 9 3/4 in) and 225 x 300 mm (8 3/4 x 11 3/4 in), under glass, minor surface dirt, framed, [circa 1920s] (4)

Provenance:
[Heavy Fish] Arthur Greatorex Ltd., London

Literature:
Beazley, David, Images of Angling. Three Centuries of British Angling Prints, Creel Press, 2010, cf. nos. 333-337

⁂ Norman Wilkinson (1878-1971) is largely known as a marine and naval artist, but he was also a prolific illustrator of salmon and trout fishing. The artist was introduced to fly-fishing at a young age, and was already a regular spring visitor to Scotland in the years before 1914, and he resumed his salmon fishing trips after the war. It wasn't until 1920 that Wilkinson, on the suggestion of his art dealer friend Robert Dunthorne, took his artist's materials with him to Scotland with the serious intention of producing some angling etchings. No catalogue of Wilkinson's total output of etchings has been published, the great majority of it was produced in three angling books, the first published in 1924, then 24 plates in An Angler's Anthology, published in 1930, and another 24 plates in Chalmer's A Fisherman's Angles, 1931. Beazley has suggested that the total number of Wilkinson's angling etchings amounts to 71, of which at least 45 were offered for sale as single sheet prints in signed limited editions. [op. cit. Beazley, p. 218]