New Article – Underneath the Lamp-post: Arthur Wragg’s Incomplete Sketch for a New Walter Greenwood Dust-wrapper (1930? 1940s?)

In mid-February 2025 a Cornish auction house put on a sale of works from the studio of Wragg and Greenwood’s friend and fellow artist Frederick Roberts Johnson. These included quite a large number of items which had come in turn by some means from Arthur Wragg’s Polperro studio. I was able to buy through an antiquarian and rare bookseller one item which was an unfinished Artur Wragg sketch for a Walter Greenwood dust-wrapper. It features a gas-lamp and the arms and hands of a lamp-lighter, This articles discusses the inspiration for this design and attempts a speculative reconstruction of what the finished dust-wrapper sketch might have looked like, based on my knowledge of Wragg’s working practices and analysis of Greenwood’s text.

See: Underneath the Lamp-post: Arthur Wragg’s Incomplete Sketch for a New Walter Greenwood Dust-wrapper (1930s? 1940s?) *

Enjoy! – Best Chris.