Ethelbert White

Ethelbert White was an English wood engraver who was born on 26 February 1891. He died on 5 March 1972. He was an early member of the Society of Wood Engravers and a founder member of the English Wood Engraving Society in 1925. He also worked in oils and water colour. He was a member of the Royal Watercolour Society, and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy.

White's introduction to wood engraving came in 1920. Hitherto he had worked largely in water colour. In 1920 Cyril Beaumont, for whom he had produced designs for booklets on the Russian ballet (L'Oiseau de Feu, The Three Cornered Hat, Thamar and Impressions of the Russian Ballet, all 1919) and two limited editions (Eclogues, a Book of Poems 1919 and The Smile of the Sphinx 1920), asked him to produce colour wood engravings for an edition of W.W. Gibson's Home for his Beaumont Press. White then started to produce independent wood engravings very much in the modern style advocated by Noel Rooke. These were unusually large in scale.

His most important book illustrated with wood engravings is The Story of My Heart by Richard Jefferies, published by Duckworth in 1923. Thomas Balston considers this to be the first substantial book illustrated with modern wood engravings to be published in Britain. In the same year the Golden Cockerel Press published an edition of Spenser's Wedding Songs with colour wood engravings by White.

His final set of wood engravings was for Thoreau's Walden, published by Penguin Books as part of a series of ten books called the Penguin Illustrated Classics in 1938. By 1940 he had ceased to produce wood engravings.

...
Wikipedia