Simon Brett

He curated two major exhibitions for the Society, Engraving Then and Now (1987) and Wood Engraving Here and Now (1995–1996).

• Name — Simon Brett • Born — 27 May 1943 • Birthplace — Windsor, England • Died — 29 December 2024 • Place of death — Marlborough, England • Occupation — Artist, engraver, writer • Style — Wood engraving • Spouse — Juliet Wood (m. 1974)

Brett was born in Windsor, England. His father, Antony Brett, served as the last steward of St Bartholomew's Hospital (Barts), which entailed living within the hospital in a flat reached by the William Hogarth Stair in the North Wing. Brett was educated at Ampleforth College, where he was taught art by sculptor John Bunting and introduced to the work of Eric Gill and David Jones. He later studied painting at Saint Martin's School of Art, London (1960–1964), where he also learned wood engraving from Clifford Webb.

From 1965 to 1970, Brett worked as a painter and printmaker. For two years, he lived in Taos, New Mexico near his great-aunt, painter Dorothy Brett, receiving grant support from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. He then travelled and worked in Denmark and Provence. From 1971 to 1989, Brett taught drawing and printmaking at Marlborough College and lectured on art appreciation. During this time, he stopped painting to engrave full-time. In 1981, he won the Francis Williams Illustration Award for The Animals of Saint Gregory. In 1989, he took on a large commission illustrating the Reader's Digest Bible, which enabled him to stop teaching and work independently as a wood engraver. Brett illustrated books for The Folio Society, including Byron, Keats, Shelley, Clarissa, Jane Eyre, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Middlemarch, and The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. With Barbarian Press of British Columbia, Brett co-produced a fine print edition of Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre which aimed to ‘stage the play on the page’ using 98 images on over 140 blocks. Pericles won first prize for the “Limited Editions” in the 2011 Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design and the “Judges Award” for the 2011 Oxford Fine Press Book Fair. The book also received praise at the 2011 CODEX International Book Fair in Berkeley. In 1998, Brett was commissioned by the Queen's Medical Household to create a print commemorating the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Brett’s work featured in exhibitions by the Society of Wood Engravers, the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, and the Royal Academy of Arts. For the Society of Wood Engravers, he curated two major exhibitions, Engraving Then and Now (1987) and Wood Engraving Here and Now (1995–96), and for the British Council, Out of the Wood, (1991). He had 13 solo exhibitions and at least 30 shared or mixed exhibitions. In 2013, his retrospective, An Engraver's Progress: Simon Brett, Fifty Years of Wood Engraving, was held at the Bankside Gallery, London.