Notre Dame, Paris.

Leonard Squirrell (1893-1979) was born in Ipswich, Suffolk. He studied at the Ipswich School of Art in 1908-1916 under George Robert Rushton, and then at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1921 under Henry Tonks. He regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, RWS, RI and RSA. Squirrell won a number of medals for his etchings, a technique of which he was a master, producing over 100 designs in his lifetime. His work is held in many public and private collections, including Victoria & Albert Museum, British Museum and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

In this full-scale mezzotint of the mid-1920s, Squirrell convincingly applies this specialised print medium in the depiction of a sublime, silhouetted Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. This is complemented by the equally expertly rendered rippling waters of the Seine River, a barge on the left and boathouses on the centre-right. Highly atmospheric clouds complete the composition. Squirrell remains a somewhat underrated figure outside his native East Anglia, but in a print like this shows himself the equal of better-known practitioners like Sir Muirhead Bone and Sir Henry Rushbury.

See: Louise Kosman, 'Leornard Squirrell', http://www.louisekosman.com/artists/artist_455.php

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    June 2018