Sarah Colegrave

MARGARET GERE NEAC (1878-1965)
The Kaltwasser Glacier (1923 United Kingdom)

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MARGARET GERE NEAC (1878-1965)

Oil on canvas

Signed and dated 1923; signed and inscribed with title on the backboard

Charles H. St.John Hornby.

This work was in the collection of C H St John Hornby (1867-1946), founder of the Ashendene Press. Under the influence of Emery Walker and Sydney Cockerell he set up the press in Ashendene, Hertfordshire in 1895. In 1899 it moved to Chelsea and operated until 1935, apart from a break in production during World War I. Producing small print runs of beautifully executed books he employed a number of important artists and designers including Eric Gill and Robert Catterson-Smith, then head of Birmingham School of Art. In c.1910 he commissioned Charles March Gere and Margaret Gere to produced a group of illustrations for his edition of The Morte D’Arthur which was published in 1913. He was a keen supporter of Margaret’s work and owned a number of her paintings.

The Kaltwasser Glacier is in the Simplon pass area near Brig, Switzerland. Margaret Gere’s oil on board, Nuns on the Simplon (1923, private collection), was exhibited at the Beaux Art Gallery, London in 1929.