Ink and Paper: A Printmaker's Art

"Ink and paper are my muses. Using hand press printing and printers' ink to create original prints has absorbed me for the last 47 years. I love the qualities of all papers, especially fine rag papers and washi papers. Their tactile and soft surfaces beg to receive ink and I am always happy to oblige them."
-- George A. Walker

George A. Walker is one of Canada's foremost woodcut artists. Over the past 40 years Walker has created more than 1,000 wood engravings to illustrate seven wordless books and countless prints covering subjects ranging from literary works to half-remembered dreams, to historical figures and events.

Ink and Paper is a collection of the best of Walker's work from the 1970s to the present. The book is a complete survey of his career, with over 250 prints -- including many from his wordless novels about important figures in Canadian art, politics and history -- as well as photos of Walker's handmade limited edition books. Each carefully selected image, complete in itself, is paired on the facing page with a complementary image that enhances the visual experience. Ink and Paper is capped with an afterword by Tom Smart, curator, essayist and director of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

Walker attributes his fascination with woodcuts and their use in wordless novels to attending an exhibition featuring the work of Frans Masereel, the first master of the wordless novel. After the exhibition he began an obsessive pursuit to find books illustrated with woodcuts, wood engravings and linocuts, and to learn everything he could about fine art printmaking and the art of wood engraving.

The result of that obsession is a four-decade career and an astounding body of work -- celebrated here for the first time in this gorgeous retrospective.