WOOD ENGRAVINGS

An understanding of the complexities of wood engraving is necessary to fully appreciate Covey's particular achievement.

Wood engraving is one of the most demanding of all printmaking processes, requiring the artist to have both a firm conception of the overall design and the patience for the painstaking labor of cutting the block. As a relief technique, wood engraving is an offspring of the oldest form of printmaking the woodcut, which dates back to the late fourteenth century in Europe... A variation of the woodcut, wood engraving was first developed by the English artist Thomas Bewick at the end of the eighteenth century. The artist turns the wood block on end and cuts the design into the tight end grain of the block. The end grain retains greater detail than is possible with woodcut, yielding both strong lines and painterly areas of varying tone. Wood engraving was the preferred technique for book and magazine illustration in the nineteenth century because of its inherent ability to convey forms modeled in light and shadow, and because movable type also is printed as a relief process.

Excerpted from an article by Eric Denker, Curator of Prints and Drawing, Corcoran Gallery of Art, for the catalog article Rosemary Feit Covey. Wood Engraving, William Floyd Gallery, New York. 2003

 "Rosemary Covey is one of the preeminent wood engravers working today. While she is conspicuously adroit at handling the tools of her craft, she rarely calls attention to her technical virtuosity for its own sake. Covey's mastery of this demanding relief process is wed to her desire to explore traditional themes with a uniquely personal approach. Whether she is conceiving of a landscape or portraiture, domestic vignettes or highly charged mythic imagery, her graphic vocabulary always remains in the service of revelation of content."
– Eric Denker, Curator of Prints and Drawings,
Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2003

01
Lisa at twenty-two with Baby
14 x 10 inches
ed. 60

02
David with Astrocytes (Brain Tumor 8)
14 x 10 inches
ed. 60

03
Ring Around the Rosie (Vanitas 2) 
14 x 10 inches
ed. 60

04
Porcupine Girl (quills off)
10 x1 4 inches
ed. 60

05
Sins of the Fathers
15 x 12 inches
ed. 80

06
10:07 (Serge 1)
4 x 3 inches
ed. 80