The Inverted Line

George A Walker did not make it into An Engraver’s Globe, and looking through this collection of his wood engravings I see again exactly why. An editor should not present as a fool one who has persisted in his folly to become wise if the wisdom cannot really be shown in the space available: better to omit than risk making him look silly. On the evidence of just a couple of works George Walker does look clumsy in a field where finesse is prized, perhaps to excess. But give him his head, as here, and you see an artist of sustained and wacky integrity half way between Posada and Krazy Kat…Is the work any good? Yes, of course it is. Of course, too, if you go for rough trade in wood engraving, you end where you began: some of this does look like beginner’s work. But Walker does things with engraving I’ve not seen anyone else do: look at Raguwl, Angel of Vengeance. His images of people in cars are startlingly expressive: he can draw - look at The Printer’s hand and the break of light around him; has Walker bodged the ear here to prove he can’t draw (so there!) - But he can and does. His small images have power and sometimes even humour and tenderness, even though he presents himself as an obsessive, the Mad Hatter of wood engraving.