Julian Trevelyan

Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988) was a distinguished artist and printmaker known for his Surrealist prints of the 1930s. Despite this acclaim, it was in fact in rural and industrial landscapes that he truly found excitement and pleasure as an artist. Trevelyan had no formal art training but joined Hayter's atelier in Paris in 1931 where he worked alongside artists such as Ernst, Kokoschka, Masson, Miro and Picasso. The etching processes learnt in Hayter's atelier were radically different from anything that had been achieved in the medium previously, and in this atmosphere be became a Surrealist overnight. In 1937, he joined Tom Harrisson's Mass Observation movement which was also to have a profound effect on his work. Between 1955 and 1963, Trevelyan worked at the Royal College of Art where he became Head of the Etching Department. Not only was he a highly influential teacher, teaching students such as David Hockney, Ron Kitaj and Norman Ackroyd, but he was an important innovator of modern print techniques and today is increasingly regarded as the quiet driving force behind the etching revolution of the 1960s.
Trevelyan was brilliantly inventive and possessed a wit and innocence of eye that could discover enchantment in the most mundane scenes. His prints, brought together here for the first time, illustrate his astonishing imagination and marvellous spirit of adventure. This beautifully designed book is a celebratory tribute to his life and work in printmaking. This book is published to coincide with two major retrospectives of Julian Trevelyan's work.