Ashwell

Frederick (commonly F.L.) Griggs(1876-1938), was a distinguished English etcher, architectural draughtsman, illustrator and early conservationist, associated with the late flowering of the Arts and Crafts movement in the Cotswolds. He was one of the first etchers to be elected to full membership of the Royal Academy.

Born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, he worked as an illustrator for the Highways and Byways series of regional guides for the publishers, Macmillans. In 1903 he settled at Dover's House, in the market town of Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, and went on to create one of the last significant Arts and Crafts houses at 'New Dover's House'. There he set up the Dover's House Press, where he printed late proofs of the etchings of Samuel Palmer, amongst others. He collaborated with Ernest Gimson and the Sapperton group of craftsmen in architectural and design work in the area.

'Fred' Griggs converted to Catholicism in 1912, and set about producing an incomparable body of etchings, 57 meticulous plates in a Romantic tradition, evoking an idealised medieval England of pastoral landscapes and architectural fantasies of ruined abbeys and buildings. His best known etchings include <em>Owlpen Manor</em> dedicated to his friend and near neighbour, the architect-craftsman Norman Jewson, <em>Anglia Perdita</em>, <em>Maur's Farm</em>, <em>St Botolph's, Boston</em> and <em>The Almonry</em> (the last two are in Te Papa's collection). Collections of his etched work are held in major public collections worldwide.

Griggs was one of the finest and most respected etchers of his time. He was an influential leader of the British etching revival in the Twenties and Thirties, and "the most important etcher who followed in the Samuel Palmer tradition" (K.M. Guichard, British Etchers, 1977). He occupies a pole position in the Romantic tradition of British art: he links the world of Blake, Turner and Samuel Palmer to a younger generation of neo-Romantic artists, including Graham Sutherland, John Piper and Robin Tanner.

Although some of Griggs's greatest works are imaginary architectural structures, the church of St Mary the Virgin Ashwell does exist - a grand, late gothic church, almost in inverse proportion to the insignificance of this charming, north Hertfordshire village, not far from Griggs's birthplace. It has the tallest tower in the county, and Griggs's spectacular manipulation of scale and silhouette certainly doesn't stint on this. <em>Ashwell </em>was etched in the spring of 1914. In retrospect, this portrait of rural tranquility seems a deliberate gesture to capture a golden age about to be lost in the Great War, but in fact Griggs had made the first drawing of this church for an illustrated guidebook to Hertfordshire as long ago as 1902.

See:

Victoria & Albert Museum, 'Ashwell', http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O72051/ashwell-print-griggs-frederick-landseer/

Wikipedia, 'F.L. Griggs', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._L._Griggs

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art    April 2018