Geoffrey Wales

Geoffrey Wales made prints which were a central part of the British response to modernism and used wood engraving, at the time of its lowest ebb, to do so. He was one of very few artists who have taken the medium from illustration all the way into abstraction - the shoreline of Norfolk and of his native Kent remaining an inspiration for the whole length of the journey. The glimmer and beauty of the sea inspired him all his life. Wales had successes in the private press movement of the 'thirties and through the 'fifties, but his later, more adventurous work was scarcely seen, let alone appreciated, in his lifetime. Hilary Chapman's pioneering study places his work in the context of the advanced printmaking of its time and pays tribute to an artist of quiet but revolutionary integrity - our unrecognised contemporary.