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Frederick Carter:
The Angel of Fire c. 1918
Framed (ref: 6550)
The original woodblock
4 x 3 in. (10.2 x 7.6 cm)
Tags: Frederick Carter plate woodblock allegory war
This apparently unpublished wood engraving would seem to be the female version of Frederick Carter’s published wood engraving entitled The Guardian Angel, an image which was designed for one of his earliest publications, Frederick Carter, Twenty Drawings, issued in 1918.
Proof impressions from Frederick Carter’s blocks are very rare, the few proofs printed during Frederick Carter’s lifetime having been solely for private use or for distribution amongst the artist’s personal friends. This characteristically symbolic design was drawn directly onto the prepared wood block by Frederick Carter; the block was then cut and worked in detail by either Carter himself or his assistant, W.M.R. Quick, to produce the finished wood engraving.
During the war, Carter produced anti-war cartoons for the Labour Party's Herald Weekly and worked as a librarian in the Aeronautical Directorate. His work of the war period and its aftermath has much in common with the imagery of Apollinaire's The Little Car (August 31, 1914)
During the 1920's, Carter became a mystic and worked on illustrations for D.H. Lawrence's Apocalypse (1929).
