Sir Frank Short, RA PRE (1857-1945)
‘He has always been recognised as a great teacher, technical authority and practising master of all the engraving processes’ (Kenneth M Guichard, British Etchers 1850-1940, London: Robin Garton, 1981, page 58)
Frank Short was born in Wollaston, Stourbridge, Worcestershire, on 19 June 1857, the second child of an engineer. He, too, trained as an engineer, from the age of thirteen, and worked in that profession for a short time. However, having taken some evening classes at the Stourbridge School of Art, he turned to art, studying at the National Art Training School, South Kensington, and attending a life drawing class at the Westminster School of Art. While painting in watercolour, he made his reputation as a printmaker, both of original images and of those after work by established masters, notably mezzotints after Turner’s Liber Studiorum. Concentrating on etching through the 1880s, he was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1885, and awarded gold medals in engraving at Paris Salon in 1889 and 1900.
His first book on the subject, On the Making of Etchings, was published in 1888.
In 1891, Short began to teach printmaking at the National Art Training School (which, five years later, became the Royal College of Art). His success and influence was such that his Etching Class developed into the School of Engraving, and in 1913 he became a Professor. By that time he had been elected a Royal Academician (ARA 1906, RA 1911, Treasurer 1919-32) and President of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (1910), and had received a knighthood for his services to Printmaking (1911). In 1917, he was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.
Short lived in London and, latterly, at Seaford in Sussex. He died at Jointure Cottage, Ditchling – the home of his friend, the artist, Frank Brangwyn – on 22 April 1945.
His work is represented in numerous public collections, including the British Museum and the V&A.
