Walter Joseph Phillips (1884-1963) Canadian, Color Woodblock. Signed bottom right, titled "Red River Road" bottom left. Depicts a road curving along a slip of land between two bodies of water with a small village in the distance.

Overall size: 15 1/4 X 14 5/8 in.

Sight size: 8 1/4 X 8 1/4 in.

#1568.

Walter Joseph Phillips was born 1884 at Barton-on-Humber in Lincolnshire, England, the son of Reverend John Phillips, a Methodist minister. In his teens he attended the Birmingham School of Art, studying under Edward R. Taylor. In 1908 he was hired as Art Master at Bishop Woodworth School in Salisbury. In 1910 he married Gladys Pitcher and immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada. Purchasing etching tools and taking lessons from local artists, he began producing etchings in very small editions in 1915, subsequently switching to color woodcut prints. During the summers of 1917 and 1919 Phillips taught at the University of Wisconsin, and by 1928 he had produced eighty-one woodcuts. His pattern of making woodcuts became very recognizable and highly sought-after: a graphite sketch followed by a finished watercolor, another sketch to compose the woodcut, and then the final print. From 1925 to 1946 his subjects were primarily the Prairies and the Rocky Mountains. In 1941 he became an instructor at the Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary, where he stayed until 1949. In 1958 Phillips’ eyesight began failing and he retired to Victoria, where he died in 1963.

Location Box 3