Douglas Percy Bliss

[Gunhills, Windley]
signed 'D.P.BLISS.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
20 1/8 x 30 1/8 in.
Price Realized £4,800

Bliss is a key figure in the history of 20th century art and design. He trained at the Royal College, where he befriended Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, who likewise pursued dual interests in fine art and graphic design. Bliss' editorship of the in-house magazine inspired the British Museum to purchase copies of this publication for their print room.

As a post-graduate Bliss initially studied wood engraving. He had an immediate affinity with the medium. Oxford University Press, under Gerald Manley Hopkins, published a book of his engravings entitled Border Ballads in 1925, and subsequently commissioned Bliss to write A History of Wood Engraving in 1928.

In that same year Bliss married painter Phyllis Dodd, and began to paint more himself. His pallette of sun-baked colours pay tribute to the graphic art of his time, evoking the golden age of the railway poster, and the celebration of the British countryside that evolved in the neo-romantic art of the post-war era. Bliss visited Ireland and the Hebrides, as well as Devon, for inspiration.

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1900-1984.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Percy_Bliss

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