In 1790 the Northumberland-born wood engraver Thomas Bewick published A General History of Quadrupeds. John Hewitt’s exhibition of digital prints, Quadrupeds Quadrupled, forms a modest tribute to that landmark work of Natural History.
Bewick depicted around 200 different animal species, originating from across the globe and ranging in size from a mouse to a giraffe. His book ran to seven editions with 14,000 printings of his hardwood hand-engraved blocks.
Many of these blocks are still producing pristine prints in the 21st century. Quadrupeds Quadrupled features four sets of four prints of four types of four-legged mammals. These groups consist of cats, cows, sheep and wild animals. They range from a mouse to a bull and were all encountered within the orbits of Saddleworth. Each of the depicted animals returns our gaze, be it through curiosity, trust, need, threat, or fear. The sixteen portraits began as small observational gel-pen drawings, measuring a maximum of 14cm square.
They were initially made as part of John’s daily sketchbook practice, instigated in 2013 and now consisting of over 3,500 drawings. The Quadruped drawings have been digitally modified and recrafted to be printed to conservation quality at 50cm x 50cm in open-ended editions. They are signed in the print in the pre-twentieth century tradition with the artist’s name, fecit – meaning ‘made this’ – and the year of publication, thus – WJOHNHEWITTfecitMMXXII.
The signature is printed vertically on the page in the Japanese manner, as seen in the prints of Bewick’s great contemporary Katsushika Hokusai. Each purchaser of a Quadrupeds Quadrupled digital print will receive a letterpress-printed Certificate of Authenticity, individually signed and numbered by the artist. The certificate was designed and produced by Graham Moss of Incline Press, Oldham, and references Bewick’s famous tail-piece engravings with John’s block-printed image of a wood-mouse.
Several of the Quadrupeds Quadrupled prints have subjects in common with Bewick’s Quadrupeds, including a weasel, domestic cats, a hedgehog, a grey squirrel and a Lancashire Ox, or Old English Longhorn. All were drawn from life, though, like Bewick, a couple were drawn from death.
Profile
Art Education
Foundation Course, Harrogate School of Art, 1974
BA (hons) Fine Art, Manchester Polytechnic, 1977
MA Printmaking, Royal College of Art, 1980
PhD, on drawing and memory, MMU, 2008
Collections include
* British Museum
* Museum of London
* British Council
* Victoria and Albert Museum
* Whitworth Art Gallery
* Government Art Collection
* Royal College of Art Print Archive
* Special Collections, MMU
Selected Awards
1980 - K.M.P. Etching Prize
2003 - Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art
2011 - Elected to the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts
2016 - The Hugh Casson Drawing Prize, RA Summer Exhibition
John Hewitt’s daily sketchbook and pen
John made over 3000 daily drawings between June 2013 and January 2022
