Portrait of Campbell Dodgson, 1919

William Strang RA (1859 - 1921)

RA Collection: Art

William Strang presented this portrait of Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum 1912-1932, as his RA Diploma work. Elected as an Associate Engraver in 1906, Strang became a Royal Academician Engraver in 1921. According to Philip Athill Strang, he was ‘infuriated’ to be elected as an engraver rather than a painter.

Dodgson was instrumental in promoting Strang’s work to dealers and collectors, helping to develop the artist’s reputation. In a lecture on Strang's work, Dodgson described this portrait was ‘engraved from life on the copper without any preliminary drawing’.

The result is a virtuoso performance and an approach to printmaking far removed from the paintstaking reworking of contemporaries such as F.L. Griggs. Dodgson himself noted that in later years Strang (who had also taken to drawing pencil portraits in the manner of Holbein) had taken to etching in a ‘sketchy manner’ which ‘did not suit his genius so well as the tighter, more deliberate and calculated work of his youth and early maturity’. The decision to submit this portrait as his diploma work perhaps indicates Strang’s impatience in later years with the preparation and design of his earlier prints, and a wish to bring printmaking closer to drawing.