In 2021 DHC was delighted to take custody of the archive of renowned designer Reynolds Stone. Thanks to the hard work of one of our volunteers, the catalogue of this collection can now be viewed online at: https://archive-catalogue.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/records/D-RYS
We are pleased to publish below a blog by Reynolds Stone’s son Humphrey.
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Reynolds Stone CBE RDI
1909–1979
It is appropriate that this archive of part of Reynolds Stone’s work should be in Dorchester, as not only did his ancestors come from the town but also he thought there was no better place to live than Dorset. This passion for the county went back to childhood where he spent long holidays, as his father was a school master, in a family home at Walditch near Bridport and prep school in Purbeck.
He had a remarkable combination of brain, eyes and hands. During boyhood his acute powers of observation and a wonder at the natural world, combined with a love of making things with Meccano, and later model trading sailing boats without a kit, was a useful training for a future wood engraver. Useful too was his mother, a painter, who taught him how to draw.
After graduating from Cambridge he took up an apprenticeship at Cambridge University Press, where he was given an engraving tool. He never looked back. Self taught except for a fortnight at Eric Gill’s workshop he developed a unique individual style in his white lettering on boxwood. He used the Renaissance italic as his model but his capital letters were influenced by Gill’s. He engraved over 350 bookplates, including one for the London Library still in use. The Royal Arms for the late Queen’s Coronation service sheet, with the lion and unicorn gloriously alive, lead to engraving the Royal Arms on a British passport in 1956.
He painted the Dorset landscape in watercolour, often with an engraving in mind. The family had moved to the Old Rectory, Litton Cheney in the Bride valley during the Coronation year. Its large wild garden with springs, ponds and harts tongue ferns under the shade of tall beech and elm trees became his inspiration to create magical engravings.
Sylvia Townsend Warner had the idea of writing poems relating to his engravings of the Dorset landscape for a book called Boxwood. Reynolds illustrated books for Fabers, and for the private press world. But he willingly entered the world of commerce encouraged by his mentor the great typographer Stanley Morison, who commissioned the masthead for The Times in 1951. He had already designed the Victory stamp after the war. Further work amongst many others included the masthead for The Economist, still in use, followed by £5 and £10 bank notes, superseded by others after decimalisation, the device for Royal Institute of Navigation, and a typeface for Linotype, Minerva. He later created his own type named after his wife Janet. These words are set in a digital version of the hot metal original.
He began to cut letters in stone mainly slate after the war. Amongst over hundred memorial stones he cut one in marble for Winston Churchill on the floor of Westminster Abbey. Michael Harvey his assistant has written about his time in the barn workshop elucidating Reynolds’ method of creating the work. John Andrew then followed on from Michael.
Reynolds always remained true to himself. All his loves and his astonishing output were intertwined. His shy unassuming unpretentious character were one.
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This was a guest blog written for DHC by Humphrey Stone, author of Reynolds Stone, A Memoir Dovecote Press, 2019.