Sybil Andrews
English-Canadian, born England, 1898 - 1992Day's End, 1961
Not on view
Linocut on paper
Dimensions10 3/4 × 10 1/4 in. (27.3 × 26 cm)
Museum purchase with funds from the Collection Endowment, 2018.67
Sybil Andrews is an internationally acclaimed artist known for her linocut prints. Since her death, Andrews work has met with wide critical acclaim and ever increasing popularity. She was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England in 1898. She immigrated to Vancouver Island, Canada, in 1947 where she continued (until 92 years old) to teach and make art. In the late 1920s, Andrews studied
with the English artist Claude Flight at the Governor School in London. Flight championed the linoleum block print as a simple and underrated art form and taught linocut printing to Andrews.
Andrews made her first linocut in 1929 and over the next six decades made about 80 linocuts in total. Her work is concerned with the depiction of movement and purity of form as expressed by activities of humans, machines, and the forces of nature. Andrews's linocuts reveal her awareness of various
modernist art movements including Futurism and Cubism. She developed a vigorous style, which has both a dramatic and rhythmic presence. In Days End, the curvilinear lines in the tilled ground compliment the sweeping waves of the setting sun. Three strong workhorses march forward as they bring their long
day of labor to an end.
