In Water Jump, Sybil Andrews shows us her mastery of the use of negative space. The white horse, the main subject of the composition, is composed using an outline of black, with an interior shadow of pale cobalt blue, and a foreleg accented by spectrum red. It is a masterful print, the water is finely handled, and the passage wherein the lead horse’s tail, fits perfectly under the next horse’s chin is Andrews at her best.
Andrews explored several horse-related sporting subjects in her prints: In Full Cry, Racing, and Steeplechasing, show us a hunt and two types of racing. Michaelmas, Mangolds, Tillers of the Soil, Days’ End, and The Timber Jim, explore the horse at work.
Sybil Andrews was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England in 1898. She immigrated to Vancouver Island, Canada in 1947 where she continued (until 92 years of age) to teach and make art. In the late 1920’s, Andrews studied with the English artist Claude Flight (1881 – 1955) at the Governor…
Sybil Andrews was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England in 1898. She immigrated to Vancouver Island, Canada in 1947 where she continued (until 92 years of age) to teach and make art. In the late 1920’s, Andrews studied with the English artist Claude Flight (1881 – 1955) at the Governor School in London. Flight championed the linoleum block print as a simple and underrated art form and taught linocut printing to Andrews, along with fellow students Cyril Power, Edith Lawrence, Lill Tschudi, Eileen Mayo, Ronald Grierson, Dorrit Black, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme.
Sybil Andrews made her first linocut in 1929 and over the next six decades made about eighty linocuts in total (almost half of them being made between 1929 and 1939.) Ms. Andrews’s work is concerned with the depiction of movement and purity of form as expressed by activities of humans, machines and the forces of nature. Andrews’ linocuts reveal her awareness of various modernist art movements including Futurism, Cubism and Vorticism. She developed a vigorous style, which has both a dramatic and rhythmic presence.
She died at the age of 94 in Victoria, British Columbia.
Andrews has exhibited at The Redfern and Parkin Galleries in London. Her work has been included in exhibitions in the National Galleries of Canada and South Australia, the Gainsborough Gallery of Johannesburg and in many cities of Europe and North America.
