Eric Slater

New cards and prints are now available, as is the book about Eric Slater, Slater's Sussex. Read more...

Short's Sussex - a companion book on Sir Frank Short, one of the 20th century’s most influential printmakers - available now

BIOGRAPHY

Eric Slater was an artist who produced more than 30 colour woodcuts between 1926 and the outbreak of the Second World War. Many depict scenes near his home in Seaford, East Sussex, where he lived for most of his adult life.

A frail, only child, Eric Slater was born in 1896 and spent his early years with his parents, grandmother and two servants in a large house in Hampstead, London. His father, Thomas, a successful silversmith and partner in the firm Aldwinkle and Slater, died when Eric was eight.

Eric moved with his mother and grandmother to Sussex where he studied at The Hastings School of Art. He was probably taught how to make woodcuts by a neighbour called Arthur Rigden Read (1879-1955) who had been to Japan to study oriental woodcut techniques used by European printmakers from the 1890s.

Coastguard
Station by Eric Slater, copyright © James
Trollope

Coastguard Station, Eric Slater

The BBC Antiques Roadshow team was delighted to discover some of Eric Slater's work when the programme visited Eastbourne. Fine art expert Dendy Easton said 'This to me is so evocative of 1920s and 1930s printmaking, and today this is very much in vogue' and described the prints as 'really lovely', a feeling echoed by the show's presenter Fiona Bruce.

Slater's Sussex book launched at Eastbourne gallery - a report by BBC South East.

A new book about the artist Eric Slater, who made woodcut prints of Sussex landscapes, has been produced in a collaboration between a writer and a local gallery.

Robin Gibson spoke to James Trollope, author of Slater's Sussex - The Colour Woodcuts of Eric Slater, and Julie Brown of the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne, where the book was launched.

ITV Meridian visited the display of Eric Slater's work in the exhibition 'A Point Of Departure', which ran at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne from May to November 2012. Reporter Malcolm Shaw spoke to James Trollope and Julie Brown, assistant curator at the Towner Gallery.

Rough Sea by
Eric Slater, copyright © James
Trollope

Rough Sea, Eric Slater

European woodcuts, less formal than Japanese woodcuts, were marketed as affordable art for ordinary homes. They were also popular in the United States where Eric Slater won a gold medal for his 1930 picture of Seaford Head.

From his studio at his house in Seaford, Slater established an international reputation exhibiting in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Austria and South Africa, but the death of his mother in 1938, the outbreak of war and changing fashions ended his career.

Eric Slater died in obscurity in 1963. A solicitor’s notice in the Sussex Gazette made no mention of his art. He is buried in a shared grave at Seaford.

2013 was the 50th anniversary of Slater's death.


The Martello Tower, Eric Slater	Morning Calm, Eric Slater	Arundel Castle, Eric Slater