Sold for: $21,060

PROVENANCE
DeVooght Galleries Ltd., Vancouver, 1979
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Peter White, Sybil Andrews, Glenbow Museum, 1982, reproduced pages 41 and 58, catalogue #33
Stephen Coppel, Linocuts of the Machine Age, 1995, reproduced page 115, catalogue #SA 33

The 1930s were a time of overwhelming social and economic change between the wars in both America and England – the Depression, mechanization, strikes and issues of unemployment were part of this shock wave. For the Grosvenor School printmakers such as Sybil Andrews, social awareness was on the rise, and workers were portrayed as vigorous and productive. In the mid-1930s, after previously emphasizing the integration of workers with machinery in her images, Andrews was producing images of farm labourers in the countryside, using their hands and simple tools. In her figures, Andrews deployed a streamlined stylization that eliminated facial features, symbolizing an egalitarian universality. The title Michaelmas refers to the ending and beginning of the husbandman’s year in medieval England, which fell on September 29, associated with the end of harvest, appropriate to this image of bringing in the hay. Bright colour, the strong forms of the horses and carts, and the emphasis on texture in the furrows of the field make this an exceptionally vibrant linocut.

This is a fine impression on buff oriental laid tissue.

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