Walter Hoyle was another one of those artists that settled in and around Great Bardfield. He was born in 1922 and after the Beckenham School of Art attended the Royal College of Art where one of his teachers was Edward Bawden. He moved to Great Bardfield in 1952 where he met his wife Denise at an art exhibition. He was a teacher as St. Martin’s School of Art, the Central School of Art, and from the mid-1960s at the Cambridge School of Art. Hoyle was a very versatile artist. He was a painter, an illustrator and also designed wallpaper. He is particularly known though for his linocuts. In Cambridge he established a printmaking studio and his views of Cambridge colleges made during that time are among his best-known art. Apart from architectural scenes, he also created a lot of landscapes especially with interesting trees. Hoyle died in 2000. His art can be found in many public collections.
This linocut probably dates from the early 1960s. It was printed in an edition of 100. It is a fairly large print and the stern, dark school buildings (believed to be Rugby School) in the foreground, dominate. A mysterious, narrow alleyway leads to further buildings in the background, although it is a bit unclear where exactly it goes. In the sky a bright, abstract, orange Sun gives the print an unexpected, but very welcome lift.
What I like especially about the print is the drama conveyed here by the contrast between the buildings and the sun in the sky as if he wanted to give the students the impression that better days are to come.
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