Artist · 51 prints
William Blake Prints
About William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter and printmaker, born in London in 1757 above his father's hosiery shop in Soho, and died in London in 1827. Largely taught at home as a child, he trained as an engraver and studied at the Royal Academy, though he rejected its official taste. From early childhood he described seeing visions, and they shaped everything he made. His wife Catherine worked beside him, printing and colouring his books.
William Blake invented his own method, relief etching, to print words and pictures together from one copper plate, and then coloured each copy by hand. He used it for his illuminated books, among them Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), and the long prophetic poems Milton and Jerusalem. Late in life he engraved illustrations to the Book of Job and began a series of designs for Dante's Divine Comedy, left unfinished at his death. Little appreciated in his lifetime, he is now seen as a key figure of Romanticism, and Tate in London holds a large collection of his work.
William Blake prints: reproductions of the relief etchings, colour prints, watercolours and engravings English poet and artist William Blake made between 1789 and 1827. Works in the collection include The Tyger (1794), The Ancient of Days (1794), The Ghost of a Flea (1819), When the Morning Stars Sang Together (1825) and The Circle of the Lustful: Paolo and Francesca (1826).
This selection concentrates on Blake's religious and literary series: plates from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, nearly all of his engravings for the Book of Job, his late illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy, and his Bible watercolours, including The Great Red Dragon paintings. Many subjects are dramatic or fearful, such as devils, serpents and Death on a Pale Horse; others, like the Job plates of prosperity and the Songs frontispieces, are calm.
The Songs plates and calmer Job engravings suit studies, libraries and reading rooms; the darker Dante and dragon works suit a hallway or a feature wall. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with low-glare acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
