HARPER, EDWARD STEEL (English, 1878-1951) "Chalk Pit at the Edge of the Forest." Signed with harp monogram and dated 1917, L.R. Oil on canvas, 12" x 17½" (sight); 17½" x 23" (framed). Price Category: C

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists became the envy of the world. Its teachings were centered on the Arts and Crafts movement popularized by William Morris. Morris himself came to lecture at the society three times during 1879 and 1880. Artists were encouraged to work in many media, from wall painting, miniatures, enamel and stained glass to embroidery, wood, and metalwork. From 1881, the society began to elect Associates on the model of the Royal Academy. Edward Steel Harper was a product of the society's tradition: one of three children of the artist Edward Samuel Harper (1854-1941), who taught at the Birmingham School of Art. All three of the children became artists: Ivy (1880-1932), who was an illuminator; Guy (1891-1961), who taught art in Birmingham, and Edward, the oldest. Born in Handsworth, Edward Steel Harper followed family tradition and studied at the Birmingham School of Art. He later specialized in landscape painting, experimenting with so-called "wet white" techniques, which had been pioneered by the Pre-Raphaelite painters. With this method, flake white was spread with a palette knife onto the canvas and the colors applied with sable brushes directly onto it, disturbing the white as little as possible. The intention was to allow the white to give luminosity to the surface tints without adulterating them. The technique required the pictures to be painted in small sections. As Harper himself explained the technique: "[it] consists of painting with transparent, or semi-transparent colors on a wet ground of white oil paint, laid evenly on the canvas with a palette knife. . . .It is essentially a one-painting method, a second coat of paint being fatal to the work. The first touch plays so important a part, that, after it is dry, painting of this kind cannot be retouched without considerable loss of luminosity, an essential quality in the adequate rendering of light and atmosphere." This subtle landscape is an excellent example of Harper's work. Here the white chalk pit offers a natural focus for his wet-white technique in combination with the mauve, yellow, green, blue, and violet colors of the of the surrounding forest. Painted using the Pre-Raphaelite technique of pure glazes, the landscape harmonizes lighter colors of the palette to produce a delicate effect of harmony. Harper exhibited at the Royal Academy (RA), Royal Institution of Painters in Oil (ROI), and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA, of which he was a member. He taught for many years at the Wolverhampton Grammar School, retiring in 1942. Harper is known to have produced 2,000 pictures, using the signature of a harp monogram to distinguish his work from that of his father, who had the same initials. He also worked in wood and metal. The City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery holds several of his landscapes. Provenance: Campbell Wilson Victorian and Modern British Pictures, East Sussex, U.K. References: David Buckman, The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945. E.S. Harper, "Wet-White Painting," document included in correspondence with Brendan Flynn, Curator of Fine Art, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England. Peter Nahum, Pre-Raphaelite, Visionary, Symbolist: An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawing, and Sculpture at the Leicester Galleries (Catalogue: London, 2001). Grant Waters, Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950 (Eastbourne Fine Art: Eastbourne, 1975). Christopher Wood, Dictionary of Victorian Artists (Barron: Woodbridge, 1978).

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