Robert John Gibbings (23 March 1889 – 19 January 1958) was an Irish artist and author who was most noted for his work as a wood engraver and sculptor, and for his books on travel and natural history.Martin J. Andrews, The Life and Work of Robert Gibbings (Bicester, Primrose Hill Press, 2003), . Along with Noel Rooke, he was one of the founder members of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1920,Joanna Selborne, 'The Society of Wood Engravers: the early years' in Craft History 1 (1988), published by Combined Arts. and was a major influence in the revival of wood engraving in the twentieth century.
Early life Gibbings was born in Cork into a middle-class family. His father, the Reverend Edward Gibbings, was a Church of Ireland minister. His mother, Caroline, was the daughter of Robert Day, Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and president of The Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. He grew up in the town of Kinsale where his father was the rector of St Multose Church.
He studied medicine for three years at University College Cork before deciding to persuade his parents to allow him to take up art. He studied under the painter Harry Scully in Cork and later at the Slade School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design.
During the First World War he served in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and was wounded at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles, was invalided out and resumed his studies in London.
In 1919 he married Moira Pennefather, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Graham Pennefather from Tipperary, with whom he had four children, Patrick (1920), Brigid (1923) and Lawrence and Finnbar (1927).
Founding of the Society of Wood Engravers Gibbings's early contact with Noel Rooke at the Central School set the course of the rest of his artistic career when he asked Rooke: "Is it very foolish of me to try to be an artist?" and received the reply: "What else could you do?".Thomas Balston, The Wood-engravings of Robert Gibbings (London, Art and Technics, 1949). Life as an artist meant life as a wood engraver, and a life where Gibbings often struggled financially whilst, at the same time, receiving critical acclaim.
This was the case at this stage of his life. The critical acclaim came with an article in the Studio in February 1919, which reproduced a number of engravings, including two colour wood engravings. Commissioned work was more of a problem. Joseph Thorp obtained commercial commissions for Eno's Fruit Salts, Matinée cigarettes and Findlater's Port.Patience Empson, The Wood Engravings of Robert Gibbings (London, J.M. Dent & Sons, 1959). For the London Underground he produced a poster for Wisley and a publicity booklet for London Zoo (1922), now considered to be the first of his published works, and the rarest.
In 1922 Gibbings produced a wood engraving for the dust jacket of The Oppidan by Shane Leslie and in 1923 he illustrated Erewhon by Samuel Butler.
He was very much at the centre of developments in wood engraving. He was a founder member and leading light of the Society of Wood Engravers, which he set up with Noel Rooke in 1920. In 1922 he contributed two wood engravings to Contemporary English Woodcuts, an anthology of wood engravings produced by Thomas Balston, a director at Duckworth and an enthusiast for the new style of wood engravings. Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, wrote about him in his introduction to the book: "The 'Cubist' or 'Post-Impressionist' element is represented by Mr. Gibbings".Campbell Dodgson, Contemporary English Woodcuts (London, Duckworth, 1922). The two engravings by Gibbings were 'Clear Waters', a strikingly modern nude, and 'Hamrun', both examples of his 'vanishing line' technique.
In 1923 Gibbings received a commission for a set of wood engravings for The Lives of Gallant Ladies for the Golden Cockerel Press, his most important commission to date at 100 guineas.
Running the Golden Cockerel Press
Gibbings was working on the wood engravings The Lives of Gallant Ladies when Hal Taylor, the owner of the press, became very ill with tuberculosis and had to put it up for sale. He sought a loan from a friend, Hubert Pike, a director of Bentley Motors, to buy the press. He took over in February 1924, paying £850 for the huts housing the business, the plant, and goodwill. For the partially completed Gallant Ladies a further sum of £200 was paid. He also leased the house and land for £40 per annum. Gallant Ladies sold well with receipts of over £1,800, and saw the start of a golden period for the press and Gibbings and his family.
The printing staff – Frank Young, Albert Cooper, and Harry Gibbs – were skilled and capable of very fine work. Moira Gibbings helped her husband in the business, and Gibbings kept close links with A.E. Coppard, who had helped Taylor with the business side of the press and who was to become a close friend. Gibbings knew all the leading wood engravers of the day and a number of authors, which enabled him to publish modern texts as well as classic ones.
The first book for which Gibbings was entirely responsible was Moral Maxims by Rochefoucault (1924). Eric Gill was brought into the fold when he quarrelled with Hilary Pepler over the publication of Enid Clay's Sonnets and Verses (1925) and transferred the book to Gibbings. In 1925 he went on to commission engravings from John Nash, Noel Rooke, David Jones, John Farleigh and Mabel Annesley among others.
Gibbings published some 71 titles at the press and printed a number of books for others. The size of a run was normally between 250 and 750, and the books were mostly bound in leather by bookbinders Sangorski & Sutcliffe. The major titles were the four volume Canterbury Tales (1929 to 1931) and the Four Gospels (1931), both illustrated by Gill. Gibbings printed 15 copies of the Canterbury Tales on vellum, and 12 copies of the Four Gospels. Printing the Canterbury Tales dominated work at the press for two and a half years, and relatively few other books were printed during that period. However, the book was a considerable critical and financial success and grossed £14,000.Roderick Cave and Sarah Manson, A History of the Golden Cockerel Press: 1920–1960 (London and New Castle DE, British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2002), OCLC 50478453. Four Gospels was equally successful, and sold out shortly after publication in November 1931.
Gibbings produced a number of books with his own wood engravings at the press, the high points being The True History of Lucian (1927) and Lamia by John Keats (1928).
Sales were strong during most of this period. Gibbings had established links with a number of booksellers, notably Bumpus in London, and negotiated a very favourable deal with Random House in the USA. He bought out Pike with finance from another Irish friend, Mary Wiggin, and later bought her out, borrowing the money from Barclays Bank.
The Gibbings family had moved to Waltham Saint Lawrence when they bought the press. Gibbings and Moira indulged in a rather unconventional and hedonistic lifestyle (neither had any inhibitions about nudity), and saw a good deal of Gill, with whom they had a very easy-going relationship. Gibbings never settled into family life, and this became an issue for Moira as time passed.
Although much of his time was taken up by running the press, Gibbings did work for other publishers. He illustrated The Charm of Birds by Viscount Grey of Falloden (1927) for Hodder & Stoughton, and A Mirror for Witches by Esther Forbes (1928) for Houghton Mifflin. When he sent the blocks to Houghton he added in his letter: "Next time you give me a job, for God's sake send me to the South Seas – I'm sick of English fogs". They were so impressed by the success of this book that they commissioned Gibbings to illustrate with wood engravings a book set in Tahiti that would be written by James Norman Hall, the author of Mutiny on the Bounty. Gibbings leapt at the chance and in 1929 he set out for Tahiti. He completed the wood engravings, but Hall did not complete the text. However, two books did emerge from this visit, The Seventh Man (1930),1930 The 7th Man a bibliographic listing for The 7th Man written, illustrated and published at the Golden Cockerel Press by Gibbings, and Iorana (1932), a semi-fictitious account by Gibbings of his time in Tahiti. Houghton published a bowdlerised version, and Duckworth the full version.
In February 1932 Gibbings wrote to the owners of the Orient Line suggesting that he produce wood engravings for their publicity in return for a free cruise. They agreed, and he produced XIV Engravings on Wood for them, one of which was also used as a poster.
Moira was less than delighted that Gibbings had twice left her in charge of the business and their family on her own and with very little consultation. Lawrence had tuberculosis and she decided to leave for South Africa to join her mother, taking the three youngest children. She returned in 1936 to finalise her divorce from Gibbings.
In the early 1930s the business climate had changed, and, as American sales had faltered, Gibbings had struggled on as the depression became more severe. The press was now moribund and Gibbings eventually sold up in 1933. The last book that he produced was Lord Adrian by Lord Dunsany (1933), illustrated with his own wood engravings.
Lecturing at Reading University
Gibbings had lost his livelihood and his family, though not his home. He did not sell the grounds and buildings of the press, as the new owners moved the press to London. To save money he moved out of the cottage into one of the huts in the grounds, and his son Patrick, who was at St Piran's Independent School in Maidenhead, stayed in another one when he was at home at the weekend. He did not seem deeply distressed about the loss of his family, although he did build up a close relationship with Patrick. The money from the sale of the press was enough to clear his debts, and a cloud seemed to lift. He wrote: "But what peace of mind when standing in the wooden hut to which I had moved, I could look about me and see not one thing that was worth five shillings to anyone else!"
In 1934 he completed the two books that he considered to be his best, Beasts and Saints by Helen Waddell and Glory of Life by Llewelyn Powys. Glory of Life was produced by Gibbings, but published by the new owners of the Golden Cockerel Press.
This was the beginning of a sustained period as an author illustrator. In 1935 he produced A True Tale of Love in Tonga,1935 Love In Tonga a bibliographic listing for Love in Tonga another picture book along the lines of The Seventh Man, followed in 1936 by Coconut Island, a book for children. Both of these were based on his experiences in the South Seas,Robert Gibbings and the South Seas by P. Empson in the Journal de la Société des Océanistes and were followed by John Graham, Convict (1937), a version of a true account set in Australia.
His reputation was growing and he was commissioned by Penguin Books to write a travel book. He went to Bermuda and the Red Sea, and wrote and illustrated Blue Angels and Whales (1938).Review (dated October 2009) of Blue Angels and Whales, Penguin Archive Project, Bristol University This was the first original writing commissioned by Penguin. The book led to Gibbings's appointment as art director of a new series of Penguin Illustrated Classics. The first ten titles, launched in May 1938, were illustrated by Gibbings (he illustrated Herman Melville's Typee) and other wood engravers.Joanna Selborne, British Wood-engraved Book Illustration 1904–1940 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998), . The series was not a success and was discontinued after the issue of the first ten titles. Penguin did, however, publish Coconut Island in 1945 as a Puffin Story Book, as well as his wood engravings to books by Eleanor Doorly – The Insect Man (1942), The Microbe Man (1943) and The Radium Woman (1953).