Body of Work
Blampied was a prolific illustrator and over 600 issues of magazines and newspapers have been recorded containing his work between 1905 and 1939. His illustrations appear in around 50 books, and he designed the dust jacket for some 150 other books, mostly novels. He also designed menu cards, loyal addresses, sheet music, Christmas cards, commercial advertising material and bookplates.
During his career Edmund Blampied produced some 200 etchings and drypoints, and more than 80 lithographs and lithographic prints, many of which depicted rural life in his beloved island of Jersey. His scenes of collecting seaweed, called vraic, from the beaches of the island using a horse and cart were, he said, his signature tune.
Besides his work in the visual arts, he also amused himself and his friends by writing poetry in Jèrriais, signing himself as Un Tout-à-travèrs. In 1933, La Chronique de Jersey, a French language newspaper, considered publishing a booklet of Blampied poems illustrated by the artist himself, but the plans came to nothing. In 1938 two of his poems were set pieces at the Jersey Eisteddfod. In 1944 he wrote words for an insulting anti-Hitler song entitled La chanson Hitleur and provided illustrations for two poems written by Winter Le Brocq.
Blampied’s prints, drawings and pictures are in the collections of: British Council, London; British Museum, London; Courtauld Gallery, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK; Leeds Art Gallery, UK; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK; Glasgow City Art Gallery, Scotland; McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock, Scotland; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, US; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, US; Cincinnati Art Museum, US; Dallas Museum of Art, US; Cleveland Museum of Art, US; Boston Public Library, US; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Heckscher Museum of Art, New York, US; Indianapolis Museum of Art, US; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, US; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, US; Saint Louis Art Museum, US; Brooklyn Museum, US; Saint Joseph College (Connecticut) Art Gallery; Art Gallery of South Australia; the Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand; the Société Jersiaise, Jersey, Channel Islands; and in the collections of many British and American universities.
Blampied died in Jersey on 26 August 1966, aged 80 years. His ashes were scattered in St Aubin's Bay, Jersey.
Illustrations and photograph reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Edmund Blampied.
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