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About the artist

Norman Hirst

British

1862–1956

Norman Hirst was a printmaker and painter, born in Liverpool. IN 1885, he earned a two-year scholarship at Herkomer's School in Bushey. He continued to live there until 1895. In Bushey Hirst learned his engraving and mezzotint skills at the fine art printing studios of H.T. Cox, and after he moved, he continued to use the studios for mezzotinting, at which he was an expert. His reputation was mainly as a mezzotint engraver of works by Gainsborough, Lawrence, Watteau and Romney. Hirst was made an associate of the RE in 1931. Frost & Reed published his works Sea Melodies and Capture and Agnew The Mall and Gamme d'Amour. Showed extensively at Royal Academy, also at Fine Art Society, Abber Gallery and RI, but a lack of interest in original mezzotints after World War II prompted Hirst's executors to burn most of his studio collection. Some of what remained was exhibited in Three Bushey Artists by the Bushey Museum Trust in 1991.
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