NORMAN ACKROYD RA

'...But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged. This I shall do by printing in the INFERNAL METHOD, by corrosives, which in hell are salutory and medicinal melting apparent surfaces away and displaying the infinite which was hid.'
- William Blake, 1794

This exhibition of etchings by Norman Ackroyd CBE RA, his 13th biennial solo show at North House Gallery, includes two of his annual collections of small etchings (available singly): The Infernal Method, 2021, and Littoral, 2022, as well as larger, independent etchings from the last two years.

The Infernal Method contains ten small etchings, measuring 12x25.5cm, focused partly on islands around the South West of Ireland, including perennial favourites, Skellig Michael and Little Skellig, and partly on the Shetland Isles and uninhabited Hebridean islands in the North Atlantic.

Littoral, celebrating the coast of Great Britain, its accessibility and variety, also contains ten etchings, slightly larger at around 15x30cm, whose subjects, post Covid, could include more from the West of Ireland as well as from the coasts of Dorset, Suffolk, Norfolk and Northumberland.

The independent prints include snow scenes from Yorkshire, the Wychwood in Oxfordshire, islands off Co. Mayo and Connemara, Shetland and St Kilda.

At 84 Norman Ackroyd shows few signs of slowing down. For at least 50 years he has been acknowledged as one of the country’s most celebrated landscape artists. Born in Leeds in 1938, he attended Leeds College of Art (1956-71) and the Royal College of Art, London (1961-64). In 1988 he was elected Royal Academician, in 1994 he was made Professor of Etching, University of the Arts, London and in 2000 elected Senior Fellow at the Royal College of Art. In 2007 he was awarded a C.B.E. for services to Engraving and Printmaking.

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