Original etching by the listed artist and printmaker Piers Browne (b.1942), created in 1972, in an edition of just 100 prints. 

Titled "Now hollow fires burn out to black ..." originally conceived as one of the 40 etchings by Browne to illustrate a special edition of "A Shropshire Lad" by A E Houseman, to be published in 1986, 50 years after his death (see details below). Depicting an empty Shropshire smithy, the forge no longer alight, just smoke rising - with the rugged outline of Caer Caradoc on the skyline to the left. 

Pencil signed and dated '72 in the lower right margin, titled lower centre and numbered 14/100 in the lower left margin. 

Etching, printed in coloured inks on wove paper. In a gilt wood frame with single mount.

Plate size 17cm x 22cm, frame size 40.5cm x 46cm.

Etching in excellent original condition, a strong early impression with good colour and fine detail (see photos). Frame and mount also in excellent condition (see photos). 

Comes with our Certificate of Authenticity - guaranteed authentic and original.

Delivered ready to hang.

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PIERS BROWNE b.1942

British landscape painter in oils and watercolours, printmaker.

Piers Browne was born in Shropshire, his first formal art training was at the Byam Shaw School of Art, London, where he studied under the tutelage of Peter Garrard and the Principal Maurice de Saumarez. This was followed by further studies at The Royal Academy Schools, London where he twice won the David Murray Landscape prize in 1974 & 1975. During this time Piers Browne also attended Islington Studio, a professional print-making workshop where he was taught etching by the great Hugh Stoneman. This period gave him the best 3 years of etching and engraving skills that later led him to become a much sought-after etcher.

Piers Browne travelled and painted extensively in Europe and Africa before settling in his adopted North Yorkshire in 1975. His home near Askrigg in Wensleydale, standing at a vantage point 1000 feet above sea level, faces over the deep valley to Addlebrough, a flat-topped small mountain rising out of the glacial landscape. Wensleydale from a height affords amazing panoramic vistas, a major influence on his life and work. The unique light that seems to exist in Wensleydale is something that he strives to capture in his work.

He has exhibited extensively in the UK and regularly at The Royal Academy.

Awards Include: 1974 & 1975 David Murray Landscape Prize; London 1986 Rank Xerox Printmaking Prize; London 1987 John Player Portrait Award 2nd Prize National Portrait Gallery; 1987 Norsk Hydro Painting Award, Darlington; 1991 WHSmith Illustrated Book of the Year/joint First prize with Wordsworth book; 2009 Artichoke Printmaking Award; London 2011 Made Painter of the North in the London DISCERNING EYE show; 2012 Winner of The Great North Art Show, Ripon Cathedral.

Published at the Shorthorn Press in Wensleydale in 1986, there were 25 handmade copies of the Piers Browne illustrated edition of A. E. Housman’s “A Shropshire Lad”. All signed by Piers Browne, the large elephant folio size measuring 16.5 inches by 13.75 inches approx. was bound in full green leather titled in gilt to upper cover and spine, and housed in a handmade slipcase with a hand painted illustration, internally fitted with marbled endpapers, and printed on fine quality handmade paper with deckled edges, Finely illustrated with forty of Piers Browne’s etchings, plus the etched title page which is made up of fourteen etched vignette illustrations the etchings. The individual etchings were also issued separately in editions of 100, of which this is one.

Now hollow fires burn out to black,

And lights are guttering low:

Square your shoulders, lift your pack,

And leave your friends and go.

Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread,

Look not left nor right:

In all the endless road you tread

There’s nothing but the night.