Leon Underwood, Harvest Corn, Prints by Bookroom Art Press

Description:

Colour Linocut. The goddess of the harvest. Painted in the Second-World War during a time in which Underwood was travelling around the country engaged in camouflage work. The white outline, which is found in several of Underwood’s prints, is here reminiscent of the chalk figures found on British Downlands. The print represents both the harvest spirit and the abundance of nature; it also represents the fruits of the artist’s endeavour. As Underwood writes in ‘Art for Heaven’s Sake’ (see Biography): ‘The artist is the sower who casts about him original thought, woven out of his intuition and imagination, and when the conditions are right, germination takes place. The artist is the sower who at the harvest time is over the horizon – on his way to sow new ground’.*

*Art for Heaven’s Sake (1934) p.i; also quoted in ‘Impressions of the 20th Century’, Margaret Timmers, p. 78.