Box of Delights

• The Ashmolean has one of the greatest wood engraving collections in the world. This book represents some of the very best from this collection

The Ashmolean Museum houses one of the most extensive collections of wood engravings in the world. The collection effectively began with the gift in 1964, by Arthur Mitchell, of over 3,000 prints, including a large group of wood engravings. During the 1980s and 1990s, it expanded remarkably with acquisitions of large groups of prints, often as gifts from the artists, resulted in a succession of monographic exhibitions on some of the most important wood engravers. They included John Farleigh (1986), John Buckland Wright (1990), Clare Leighton (1992), Monica Poole (1993) and Anne Desmet (1998). A key point in this period of expansion was the acquisition of a comprehensive body of work by Gertrude Hermes and Blair Hughes-Stanton in 1995 from the artists’ family, which resulted in a memorable exhibition organised by Katharine Eustace. More recently, the Ashmolean has formed a close partnership with the SWE, and has been keeping the collection up to date by acquiring work by members, both at the Society’s annual exhibition and privately.

Anne Desmet, is only the third wood engraver to have been elected a Royal Academician; her predecessors were Gertrude Hermes and Charles Tunnicliffe. She has close links with the Ashmolean and with Oxford, having studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art as an undergraduate at Worcester College, which recently elected her to an honorary fellowship. Anne has worked tirelessly on this project, bringing a particular sensitivity to the selection as one of the most distinguished and imaginative of wood engravers.