The women wood engravers

Posted by Barbara on March 16, 2026 in Blog, Exhibition, feminism, women artists, women artists | 2 comments

Now here is your starter for 10:  what are spitstickers and scorpers and where might you find them?  Read on and all will be revealed.  This dame was so inspired by Dame V’s riveting account of the Pattle sisters that she headed off to the Watts Gallery to see them first hand.  And yes, the exhibition is absolutely fascinating.  But the full name of the gallery is actually ‘Watts Gallery Artists’ Village’, and at any one time there are several exhibitions running together with a variety of talks, concerts and workshops.

So having explored the remarkable achievements of the soeurs Pattle, we moved on to another enthralling exhibition: ‘Lines & Lineage: Three Wood Engravers’.  The three women artists in this exhibition span a century of wood engraving; this is one of the most detailed forms of print-making, requiring enormous skill and patience from the artists.  The three mistresses of the art are Sarah van Niekerk (1934-2018), one of the most influential and well-respected masters of the medium for over 50 years, her teacher Gertrude Hermes (1901-1983) and contemporary prints by Rebecca Coleman.

Initially wood engraving was used mainly for book illustration, but artists including Hermes broadened its use to become a more purely decorative art form. Usually using only one colour – black – to create the image, the density and depth of the engraved lines are the artist’s only means of expression.

Sarah van Niekerk’s engravings have a fluidity and softness. She grew up in the Berkshire countryside and studied at Central School of Art and Design in London, where Gertrude Hermes taught a Zoo Drawing class. Van Niekerk went on to complete a Diploma in Wood Engraving.  She is quoted as saying ‘I loved the satisfying crunch as the scorper (yes, well spotted) lifted little golden curls on its way through the wood to create light in which the composition was slowly revealed..’  She went on to exhibit at the Royal Academy on numerous occasions, had solo shows across the UK, illustrated books for a number of publishers and taught at several academic and artistic institutions.

Gertrude Hermes trained as a printer and sculptor and was contemplating a career in farming before enrolling at art school and continuing her studies at Brook Green School of Drawing, studying alongside such luminaries as Henry Moore and Eileen Agar. She married Blair Hughes-Stanton, another student, and they were founder members of the English Wood Engraving Society, promoting wood engraving as a stand-alone art form. In 1947 she started teaching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, when women teachers were a rarity.  Her engravings feature the natural world in all its permutations; animals, birds, plants and landscapes.

Following in these illustrious footsteps, Rebecca Coleman was elected to the Society of Graphic Fine Art in 2014. She has had several wood engravings featured at the RA Summer Exhibition, and is a regular exhibitor with the Royal West of England Academy amongst other institutions. Coleman’s subject matter includes the natural world favoured by Hermes and van Niekerk, but she has also featured cityscapes and has an ongoing series of wood engravings exploring the London Underground. We will give her the last word: ‘Wood engraving is also notable in that women are very visible – more so, I feel than for other mediums’.