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Blair Hughes-Stanton
[1902-1981]
Painter and wood engraver
Hughes-Stanton studied at the Byam Shaw School, Royal Academy School, and at Leon Underwood's School, where he first turned his attention to wood engraving, and subsequently became a member of the London Group. SP was the first book to be illustrated by Hughes-Stanton, and many such commissions followed, notably Birds, Beasts and Flowers by D H Lawrence, with whom he personally collaborated. He worked on numerous fine books at the Gregynog Press between 1930 and 1933, participating in every stage of their production, and later set up his own private Gemini Press. In 1938 he was awarded the International Prize for Engraving at the Venice Biennale. During WWII he served as a camouflage officer with the Royal Engineers, but a wound to his jaw, sustained while a prisoner of war, affected his eyesight, so that he was never able to return to the precision of wood engraving. He continued to paint and draw, however, and taught until only two years before his death. Hughes-Stanton produced 11 highly imaginative woodcuts for Lawrence, and also completed Edward Wadsworth's alphabet of decorative initial letters with X and Z.