6 May 2008

The Art of Karl Salsbury Wood

Karl Salsbury Wood was born at Kings Newton, Derbyshire, in 1888. He later moved to Nottingham for several years, where he worked as a packer in a warehouse at Short Hill in the Lace Market; his boss was Louis Oram Trivett, an enthusiastic boy scout leader from West Bridgford. By the time Wood left service in World War I, he was a self-taught artist, and spent most of his adult life at his studio at Gainsborough, England. He is best known for his many paintings of windmills of the British Isles, and for some years spoke about writing a book called 'The Twilight of the Mills'; unfortunately, the book was never published, although he wrote many articles in the Gainsborough Standard which bore this title. Soon, I shall be publishing these in a re-write of my Windmill Wood: A Biography of Midlands Artist Karl Salsbury Wood.

Many thanks to Karl Wood's cousin Ann Hatton for sending me these images of his artwork. The dates are unknown.

Abbey Farm, Renhold, Bedford. This was Ann Hatton's home, where she and her three siblings were brought up. Watercolour.

Manaccan, Cornwall. Tinted linocut.

Cley next the Sea, Norfolk. The lettering showing through the image on occasions is because Wood did this on the back of an advertisement for an optician. Tinted linocut.

Alveston, Derby.

Unknown location.

Unknown location. Watercolour.

Unknown location. Watercolour.

3 comments:

Rodge said...

I find Karl's paintings rather beautiful, if a little too romanticised. I would be interested in obtaining a copy of Tony Shaw's biography of Karl entitled Windmill Wood. I am distantly related to Karl, so if anybody has one that they would like to sell, please let me know!

Dr Tony Shaw said...

Hi Rodge

Sorry to be so late in replying, but I've only just noticed your post. Unfortunately, there are no more copies of Windmill Wood left, and my attempts to publish a new edition with additions are proving a little problematic. However, if you scroll down my blog far enough you'll find the biography itself: I copied and pasted it, and although it's lost many of its attributes and none of the footnotes are there, it's the full edition otherwise.

Do you know how you are related to Karl?

Tony

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.