Elizabeth Harvey-Lee Logo. Etchings and Prints for Sale Elizabeth Harvey-Lee, Print Dealer. Etchings and Prints for Sale Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Print Dealer Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Print Dealer
Click here to return to the Home page at any time
Further information about Elizabeth harvey-Lee, Print Dealer and Seller
The methods and history of printmaking
Order back-copies of Elizabeth's previous printed catalogues
View this month's selection of prints for sale
View Elizabeth's current on-line exhibition, many prints for sale, and explore the archives
Contact Elizabeth Harvey-Lee and enquire about prints for sale
Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
You are hereHarvey-LeeHomeHarvey-LeeWeb ExhibitionsHarvey-LeeJeff Clarke Introduction


Jeff Clarke R.E. at 80 and beyond
A Retrospective of his prints
and selection of his most recent work

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Jeff Clarke in his upstairs Oxford studioJeff Clarke in his upstairs Oxford studio
Jeff Clarke in his upstairs Oxford studio

Jeff Clarke, now 87, is not only still working in his studio daily but continuing to branch out, as a printmaker, in investigating new matrices and ways of bringing colour into his prints. A small selection of his prints produced in the last seven years has been added at the end of this exhibition, and new work will continue to be added.

Also, within that period Jeff, has acquired a dedicated website: Jeff Clarke Art, where his paintings, pastels and drawings can also be seen.

Jeff Clarke, at 80, is not only still working in his studio daily but branching out, as a printmaker, in investigating new matrices and ways of bringing colour into his prints.

Jeff was born in Brighton, and, naturally, attended Brighton Art School as it then was, from 1952 to 1956, gaining the National Diploma in Design and Painting. Wood engraving was part of the syllabus as a craft and was Jeff’s initial introduction to printmaking, but was soon superseded in interest by etching, under the influential tutelage of ‘Dick’ Cowern (Raymond Teague Cowern) who ran the Brighton etching room.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | The Brighton etching room, photograph c1947
The Brighton etching room, photograph c1947, Dick Cowern presiding. Another of Cowern’s students, contemporary with this photograph, Michael Blaker R.E., has recalled “in the etching-room, among the surgical-like needles and burnishers, the finely polished mirror-surfaces of copper, R T Cowern was high priest in his blue smock”.

Cowern belonged to that last generation of etching postgraduate students at the Royal College of Art in the 1930’s instructed by Malcolm Osborne and Robert Austin in the continuing tradition of Frank Short, the first Professor of Engraving at the RCA. Short had trained several generations of etchers (including both Osborne and Austin) who would contribute to the Etching Revival, or the following Etching Boom of the early decades of the 20th century. At the RCA Cowern had preferred etching outdoors from nature and as a teacher encouraged his own students to needle the grounded plate directly in front of the motif. Students at the RCA were encouraged to enter as candidates for the Prix de Rome Scholarship. Cowern’s own potential three year tenure as a Rome Scholar was effectively cut short after two years by the outbreak of the Second World War.

Though even by the 1930’s the etching boom was largely over and in the immediate Post-War years many artists, including Cowern himself in his own work, abandoned the medium, as a teacher Cowern continued to inspire his students in the etching room at Brighton and motivate them to try for the Prix de Rome in Engraving and other awards.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Jeff Clarke: Rue Pequet, Dieppe. Etching, 1954
Jeff Clarke: Rue Pequet, Dieppe. Etching, 1954

Two years into his course at Brighton, in 1954, Jeff Clarke was granted a Travelling award which he used to make his first visit to Dieppe. Single impressions of two etchings of the rue Pequet remain from that visit; the only prints extant from Jeff’s early years.

On graduating from Brighton in 1956, Jeff had his first solo exhibition, at Brighton Municipal Art Gallery, and the same year won a British Institute Fund scholarship and the Prix de Rome in engraving, spending the following two years in Italy. In Rome he followed Cowern’s advice and visited the hilltown of Anticoli Corrado, an artist’s colony in the Abruzzi, about thirty miles out of Rome.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Cowern: The Feast of Sant’Antonio, Anticoli Corrado, etching, 1939
Dick Cowern: The Feast of Sant’Antonio, Anticoli Corrado, etching, 1939
(For other Cowern etchings of Anticoli see the Home Page Selections)

The small picturesque town captured Jeff’s imagination and he stayed. There, with no access to printmaking facilities or a press, he abandoned printmaking and concentrated on painting and drawing.

Rome Scholars were entirely free to follow their own directions and inclinations, though a predilection for draughtsmanship is usually apparent. The scholarship was awarded largely on the strength of submitted finished drawings.

His student years over, Jeff settled in Oxford in 1960 to take up a part-time teaching post at Oxford School of Art, now part of Oxford Brookes.

From 1964 to 1973 he had five one-man shows, principally of paintings, at the Bear Lane Gallery in Oxford.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Jeff Clarke: Burslem Wire Netting, 1970
Jeff Clarke: Burslem Wire Netting, 1970

It was only in 1970, when he became a visiting tutor at the Burslem School of Art (incorporated into the North Staffordshire Polytechnic) that he began again to make the occasional etching.

It was a developing friendship with Terry Frost, then teaching at Reading University, that led to a full return to etching, as to the post of visiting tutor at Reading, where he helped Frost with printing.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Jeff Clarke: Untitled Abstract: Variation on a Cruciform III.
Jeff Clarke: Untitled Abstract: Variation on a Cruciform III.
Etching & aquatint, 1977

Through the early to mid-1970’s this involvement and association led to a period of abstraction which culminated in a show of etchings at the Oxford Museum of Modern Art, then run by Nicholas Serota, as well as a show at Kettles Yard in Cambridge.

Then followed a difficult period, uncertain in direction, which was resolved in 1979-80 when Jeff was appointed as draughtsman to the British School of Archaeology in Athens and made the first of several regular summer visits through the 1980’s to Crete, to record Minoan pots found in that season’s dig at Knossos . He would also go to Cyprus in this capacity.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Jeff Clarke: Knossos Cockerel Etching, 1985
Jeff Clarke: Knossos Cockerel Etching, 1985
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Road near Knossos. Etching, c1988
Road near Knossos. Etching, c1988

The harsh landscape defined by the brilliant Mediterranean light inspired him to take up etching again, working directly on the plate before the motif in the open air, in a return to the concrete, to landscape, street scenes and still life objects, the ‘stuff’ of everyday life, depicted in strong patterns of chiaroscuro, which have continued to be his concern in printmaking ever since; themes to which he returns constantly.

Thereafter, back in his Oxford studio, etching became an important part of his work and he acquired his own etching press from the then fairly newly established firm of Rochat. Jeff’s house, a Victorian mid-terrace brick property, still has the original separate substantial two-storey building in the back garden, formerly used as a College laundry, which converted into ideal studio space on the upper floor, with a printing room beneath.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Jeff Clarke: Hinksey Willows. Etching, 1985
Jeff Clarke: Hinksey Willows. Etching, 1985

Through the 1980’s alongside his Cretan plates Jeff found subjects in the local Oxford landscape, such as the willows at Hinksey, and increasingly over the years turned to studio and outdoor still life.

A collector of modern pots and the friend of several potters, his pots, as well as more utilitarian jugs, appear frequently in his still lives, along with the ubiquitous onion, and apple. His still lives are marked by both their strength of drawing the actual form of the object and an interest in the abstract patterns of the shapes created by chiaroscuro.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Pots, shapes and textures. Soft-ground etching with open bite, 2010
Pots, shapes and textures. Soft-ground etching with open bite, 2010

Many of the still lives were made in the artist’s back garden when the right sunny conditions allowed, a garden that overflows with flowers and pots and foliage.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Photograph looking down on the artist’s back garden Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Jeff’s back garden
Photograph looking down on the artist’s back garden from the studio window (left) and another photograph (right) taken in Jeff’s back garden with a variety of ‘favourite’ still life objects (cf. three variations of Arrangement Outdoors in the exhibition). Click for enlargements.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Chair, spotted jug and leaves. Etching on copper, 2014
Chair, spotted jug and leaves. Etching on copper, 2014

At several year intervals, from 1992 until 2011, Jeff had regular one-man shows at Christchurch Picture Gallery in Oxford; some devoted to paintings, pastels and drawings; others dedicated specifically to prints.

From 1996 to 1999 he was a visiting tutor at the Royal Academy Schools, at the invitation of Len McComb RA, and at the suggestion of David Carpanini PPRE, was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (the RE).

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Dieppe Roofs. Etching with aquatint. 1996
Dieppe Roofs. Etching with aquatint. 1996

In 1996 a return visit to Dieppe is reflected in a number of plates of the town’s roof ‘landscapes’, which make an interesting comparison with the early rue Pecquet plates.

Later years too show a renewed interest in urban scenes in Jeff’s locality in Oxford.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Scuddy Day. Cardboard relief print, 2011 Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | photo taken from the side window of Jeff’s studio
Scuddy Day. Cardboard relief print, 2011 (click to enlarge) and photo taken from the side window of Jeff’s studio looking over the neighbouring gardens

From about 2005 Jeff has experimented with new materials and different techniques offering greater freedom and broader effects. The use of cardboard as a matrix, worked both in intaglio and relief, and relief printing with stencils, allows changes to the image to be made quickly, while carborundum, sandpaper and wire brushes have an immediacy in giving tonality by contrast with the traditional etching methods of slow linear build up or aquatint achieved through repeated bitings in acid.

Another recent development is the introduction of colour into Jeff’s printmaking. After having printed existing plates in warm burnt sienna and raw umber (instead of his previous usual black ink) which he found gave an increased sense of warmth to the light in the subject, about 2007 Jeff began to print some plates in full colour. He used a complex and time-consuming method which involved painting (à la poupée- like) several coloured etching inks onto the copper plate and then overprinting the colour impression with the linear image from the same plate in black ink, which resulted in a rich but sometimes slightly muted colour image.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Outdoor Arrangement. Colour etching, 2008
Outdoor Arrangement. Colour etching, 2008

Since then he has turned to aluminium plates, with bolder and simpler lines printed over larger areas of hand-painted flat translucent oil colours. The colours vary from impression to impression, like a series of monotypes.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | The White Jug, monotype and aquatint, 2014
The White Jug, monotype and aquatint, 2014

Already a colourist in his pastels, paintings and cut paper works, in the colour etchings and relief prints the vibrant colours, joyous or sonorous, are used to create an equivalent ‘chiaroscuro’ of light through colour, rather than through the contrast of dark shadow as in a monochrome print.

For his latest monochrome prints Jeff has just started to explore the possibilities of plastic plates, finding that the clear acrylic sheets respond well to drypoint scraping and that roughening the surface gives a rewarding variety of tone.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Photograph in Jeff’s printing room
Photograph in Jeff’s printing room, with impressions from new plastic plates of Brancaster Staithe taped to vertical boards for stretching and drying

In the new techniques he has largely abandoned editions, making a succession of artist’s proofs as the image on the cardboard takes shape and is then changed, like a series of variations and development on a theme. (Jeff is also a musician; both playing the organ and until very recently singing bass in several Oxford chamber choirs.)

Often several plates are being worked on, in different versions, simultaneously, in a progression of states, using different printing processes, as well as perhaps tackling the subject in paint or cut papers. New motifs may intervene before he returns to work on previous plates.

It is fascinating how the same plate printed by different methods or in different colours becomes a different print.

It is a continuing story.

Though the technical details of the processes involved can sound complicated, and are explained fully where appropriate alongside each print in the exhibition, ultimately there is no need to be bogged down in terminology.

More important than its method of creation is the resulting image itself.

I hope you enjoy this selection.

The Clarke Exhibition

To view the entire Exhibition, print-by-print, click this link and then follow the prints through the Gallery by using the "next print >" and "< previous print" navigation buttons. Alternatively, you can select an individual print from its thumbnail or title in the list below.

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 01

Rue Pequet, Dieppe
Etching, 1954

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02

Burslem (seen through wire netting)
Sugar lift etching, 1970

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 03

Oxford Garden
Etching, 1977

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 04

Night Reflections
Aquatint, 1976

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 05

Night Windows
Aquatint, 1976-77

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 06

Cruciform Variant I
Aquatint, 1977

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 07

Cruciform Variant II
Aquatint, 1977

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 08
Daisies and Buddleia
Etching, 1981
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 09
Cretan Church
Etching, 1983-85
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 10
Deserted house near Silamos
Etching & Aquatint, 1983-85
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 11
Knossos, Palm Trees, Villa Ariadne
Etching, 1983-85
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 12
Chair, Amphora & Lemon Tree, Knossos
Etching & Aquatint, 1985
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 13
Hinksey Willows, Oxford
Soft Ground Etching, 1983-85
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 14

Hinksey Willows
- Large Plate
Etching & Drypoint, 1985

Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 15
Willows
Etching & Drypoint, 1984-85
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 16
Pine Trees, Villa Ariadne with Goats
and Horta Gatherers

Etching, c1988
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 19
Aghios Andonias, Crete
Etching, 1990
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 20
Knossos Courtyard
Etching, c1990
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Roughwood Farm
Etching, c1990
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Cretan Chair and Bowl of Fruit
Etching & Drypoint, c1991
 
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
English Rose, Cretan Vase
– Variation in Soft-Ground
Soft-ground etching, 1994
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Knossos Table
Etching, c1994
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Honesty and three Jugs
Etching & Aquatint, 1995
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Rooftops, Dieppe
Etching, 1996
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Enamel Jug and Windfalls
Etching & Aquatint, 2001
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Garden Table with Watering Can
Etching & Aquatint, 2005
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Garden Table with Watering Can
– Blue and Brown

Etching, 2005
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
The Blue Fork
Etching, 2005
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Studio Jugs and Boxes
Etching, 2006
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Studio Table
Drypoint, 2007
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Farm Buildings, Cuddesdon
Etching, 2008
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Objects on a sideboard
Intaglio collograph, 2009
 
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
The Studio Cupboard
Drypoint, 2010
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Jug and Brushes
Drypoint, 2010
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Studio Shadows
Drypoint, 2010
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Terrace and Garden Fence
Relief Print, 2011
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Garden Chair
Drypoint, 2011
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Evening Shadows
Etching, 2012
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Leaves, Coffee Pot and Chair
Drypoint, 2014
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
The Orange Chair
Colour Etching, 2014
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Variation on Objects on a Greek Table
Etching, 2014
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee | Exhibit 02
Variation on Objects on a Greek Table
- with colours
Etching, 2014
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Spotted Jug
– Relief version in brown and black
Etching, 2015
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Brancaster Staithe – Tide out
Drypoint, 2015
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Jug and Apples
Drypoint and carborundum, 2017.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Objects Against a Wall
Drypoint and carborundum, 2017.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Garden Chair
Drypoint and carborundum.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Onions and Shadows
Original etching, 2018.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Ageing Roses
Drypoint and carborundum, 2017.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Four Apples
Original drypoint, 2021.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Fruit and Squash
Original etching, 2021.
Jeff Clarke at 80 | Exhibition by Elizabeth Harvey-Lee
Pink Jug and Onions
Sugar aquatint & added oils, 2021
 

 

 

Return to the top of this page ^

 

Return to the top ^

 

Return to the top of this page ^