Robert Gibbings

Cork-born Robert Gibbings was an artist and author best known for his wood engravings. He studied medicine in University College Cork before transferring his energies to art. He attended the Slade and later the Central School of Art in London where he was influenced by wood-engraver Noel Rooke. Gibbings’ first book Twelve Wood Engravings was published in 1921. He bought and ran the influential Golden Cockerel Press in Berkshire, England from 1924-1933. During and after WWII he wrote and illustrated several natural history books, including Sweet Thames Run Softly, Going Down the Seine and Lovely is the Lee. A founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1919, Gibbings’s work enjoyed widespread popularity. He was important in promoting the revival of wood engraving in the twentieth century.