William Pryor, grandson of celebrated early twentieth-century wood engraver Gwen Raverat, reveals the behind-the-scenes work of managing the artist's estate and keeping her legacy alive.
Can you give us a brief background to Gwen Raverat and her work?
Gwen Raverat was one of the founders of the
Society of Wood Engravers in the 1920s. She took wood engraving from being a book illustration method to a new artform. Her subject matter was very emotive and her composition is just extraordinary.
Gwen’s father, George Darwin, was one of the five sons of Charles Darwin, so she grew up in Newnham Grange in Cambridge - the building is now Darwin College, part of the University of Cambridge. She started making images from a very young age and managed to persuade her parents to let her do what was unheard of then: go to art school.
She went to the Slade at the same time as Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler and Dora Carrington, and became friends with the Bloomsbury set, because Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell’s father was a great friend of Gwen’s father. Gwen was the first secretary of Vanessa Bell’s Friday Club, and she exhibited at one or two of their exhibitions in 1910-11. Through Cambridge’s artistic circles, Gwen and her husband Jacques Raverat also became involved in the Neo-Pagan group led by poet, Rupert Brooke.
After the First World War, Jacques was advised to go to a warmer climate due to ill health, so they moved to Vence in the south of France. During this period they had two small children, my mother and my aunt. Jacques’ health was deteriorating, but their output then was amazing and Gwen’s wood engravings of Vence are her strongest, in a way.
When Jacques died in 1925, Gwen came back to England. She reinvented herself and became an art critic and writer, as well as a wood engraver. The writing led to the book
Period Piece, which is a classic bestseller.
What type of work goes into running the estate?
I feel very strongly, and my siblings agree, that we’ve got to keep Gwen’s work in the public eye. She’s one of those unknown greats.
After my mother died, we decided to set up a company co-owned by myself, my two sisters and my two nephews. The company structure was key. I’m the Managing Director which means I don’t have to consult everyone else all the time, which I think would be impossible.
We’ve set up
a website – that’s been a huge amount of work – and we’ve been mounting exhibitions. My grandmother’s work is very useful for book illustration, and we still get requests for books and articles, you name it. We also look after her physical archive, which is in a concrete-lined filing cabinet kept at a fulfilment and fine-art printing company in Somerset. We also offer originals and giclée prints.
How has being a member of DACS helped?
I come from outside the artistic world, so it helps someone like me understand what I’m doing, and to know that there are rules and regulations about the
licensing of copyright, because we do license Gwen’s illustrations and so on. Like other collecting societies that represent creators such as authors, DACS does the same for artists.
What do the royalties go back into supporting?
We get a small cheque from you each year for Gwen’s work which goes back into the company and helps us to employ a member of staff who manages the archive. We’ve also been involved in events such as the Virginia Woolf Conference earlier this year and a recent exhibition of Gwen’s work at Watts Contemporary Art Gallery in Compton, Surrey.
You’re a member of our Artist’s Resale Right service. Why do you think it’s important that artists should get a royalty each time their work re-sells?
I find that such an odd question in a way because it seems so natural. Musicians, authors and filmmakers get residual rights in what they do - their relationship with the work continues and they’re part of the story. The notion that, as an artist, as soon as you’ve sold a painting that’s the end of your relationship with it, seems just wrong. You can’t separate the work from the artist – it’s what I’m so passionate about with Gwen.
Do you have any other projects coming up that we should know about?
I am researching and transcribing the copious letters and unpublished writings, not only by my grandmother, but also by those close to her, specifically her close friend and cousin, the poet Frances Cornford. This research will help the development of a drama and potential TV series about Gwen’s life and relationships.
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Image: Willliam Pryor, grandson of Gwen Raverat and representative of the Estate of Gwen Raverat. Photograph © Brian Benson, 2017. www.bbphoto.me.