Sybil and Cyril: Transatlantic Printmaking

Sybil Andrews and Cyril Power were a significant art partnership that eventually turned transatlantic. He worked in London producing famous scenes of the underground, she was  in British Columbia doing distinctive linocuts. Despite their importance to Canadian art, Andrews’ works did not come to wide attention until she was well into her 80s.

(Above: her Ploughing Pasture, 1955)

Andrews was born in Britain and worked closely with Power for several decades until her move to Campbell River, B.C. in the 1940s.  The two were a force in an important school of modernist printmaking that made art more accessible through the use of cheaper linocuts, reliefs cut from linoleum rather than wood. They also co-founded The Grosvenor School Of Modern Art in London in 1925.  (Above: Escalator, one of Power’s best known tube works)

Sybil Andrews – Giant Cable, 1951 / Below: The Gale, 1931

In B.C., Andrews lived in a beach cottage, gave art lessons and created works rarely seen outside her community until the Glenbow Museum presented a retrospective in 1982.  The exhibition and catalogue travelled across Canada, enabling Andrews to emerge at the age of 84 as an important Canadian artist.  The Art Deco influence of her work, and the reality that she was unknown until recent decades, has made her extremely popular with collectors.  She died in 1992.

A good biography of Sybil Andrews here (with a link in the bio to Cyril Power)

A local Historical Society site on Sybil Andrews on her life in B.C., here