Robert Gibbings

Robert Gibbings (born in Cork, Ireland 23 March 1889 - died Oxford 19 January 1958) was an Irish artist and author who was most noted for his work as a wood carver and engraver and for his books on travel and natural history.

Life

He was born in Cork into a middle-class family. His father was a Church of Ireland minister. His mother was the daughter of Robert Day, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and president of The Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.

He studied medicine for three years at University College Cork before deciding to persuade his parents to allow him to take up art. He studied under the painter Harry Scully in Cork and later at the Slade School of Art and the Central School of Art.

During the First World War he served in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and was wounded at Gallipoli.

He married Moira Pennefather, from Tipperary, with whom he had four children.

His principal writings and drawings were of his native Cork, the Thames Valley near London and parts of Polynesia, which he visited several times.

Gibbings was the proprietor of the Golden Cockerel Press from 1924 until 1933, when he sold it to a fellow native of Cork, Christopher Sandford.

Works

*"Coming Down the Seine"
*"Sweet Thames Run Softly"
*"Coming down the Wye"
*"Trumpets from Montparnasse" (1955)
*"The Seventh Man"
*"A True Tale of Love in Tonga"
*"Blue Angels and Whales"
*"Sweet Thames Run Softly"
*"Till I End My Song"
*"Over the Reefs"
*"Coconut Island"
*"John Graham, Convict"
*"Lovely is the Lee" (1945)
*"Sweet Cork of Thee" (1952)

External links

*http://www.cambridgeprints.com/artists/g/GIBBINGS.HTML

References

*Martin J Andrews "The Life and Work of Robert Gibbings" Primrose Hill Press (2003) ISBN 1901648311