‘One image of a veiled woman was all net and nose. Then, by laying down carefully pared pieces of onion-skin tissue-paper behind the place where the impression would be made, Brian brought out and made visible the expression of traumatized, envious sympathy the artist had engraved into the wood in her depiction of the woman’s face. It slowly came alive at his touch – though Brian would pass the credit back to the artist who created the picture. I suppose he is right; but his contribution is closer to that of a concert pianist interpreting a score than that of an engineer.’
Simon Brett, a wood engraver himself, remembers watching Brian Bailey, a letterpress printer at Libanus Press in Marlborough (where most of the Society of Wood Engravers books are printed) printing Judy Jaidinger’s engravings for E. Nesbit’s The Three Mothers. From Slightly Foxed Issue 4, Winter 2004.
