40. Joseph Pennell
(1857-1926)
The Shot Tower, London

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Pennell, The Shot Tower, London

The Shot Tower, London

Etching, 1906, 217 x 278 mm., Wuerth 414. Fine impression in black-brown with plate tone on a sheet of old laid paper torn from a book, with full margins and signed in pencil. The edition was probably 50. Pennell marks a defining point in the American Etching Revival as probably the first American etcher to show the strong influence of Whistler. He met Whistler in London in 1894, but had obviously known many of his works before that. Pennell began his career as an illustrator of books and magazines and most of his early etchings have an illustration look about them, often rather dry and pedantic. With the influence of Whistler, Pennell’s very etched line changes, becomes swift and pliant and spontaneous and his inking of the plates becomes far more adventurous. All of these characteristics can be seen here, though Pennell was only rarely able to leave out non-essentials as Whistler could. Whistler died in 1903, but his influence remained, and both Pennell’s etchings and his writings (he and his wife wrote an adulatory biography of Whistler) were instrumental in spreading that influence to other artists.

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