Edmund Blampied

Edmund Blampied (born Jersey, March 30, 1886, died Jersey, August 26 1966) was one of the most eminent artists to come from the Channel Islands, yet he received no formal training in art until he was 16 years old. He was noted mostly for his etchings and drypoints published at the height of the print boom in the 1920s, but was also a lithographer, caricaturist, cartoonist, book illustrator and artist in oils, watercolours, silhouettes and bronze. He was the illustrator of a fancy edition of Peter Pan and Wendy published in 1940, the first under the direction of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Blampied was born on a farm on the island of Jersey in the English Channel, on 30 March 1886. Raised by his shopkeeper mother, his first language was Jèrriais, the dialect of Norman (a sibling of French) traditionally spoken on Jersey. After finishing parochial school at the age of 14, he went to work for the town architect, where his drawings where noticed by the woman who ran a local private art school. His political caricatures earned him to sponsorship of a local businessman to attend the Lambeth School of Art in London where – despite his poor English – he learned to work in watercolours and etching.

He established himself as a independent artist, doing both commercial illustration and fine art, especially etchings. After a stint on guard duty in the Royal Jersey Militia, he resumed his artwork, was elected as Associated in the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1920, and to full fellowship a year later. Blampied was elected at the end of what has been called the "etching revival", but there was still a strong market for prints, mainly as an inexpensive investment in art.

Blampied started to experiment with lithography in 1920. In 1925 the Central School of Arts and Crafts submitted two of Blampied’s lithographs with the work of other students to the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, the exhibition that gave rise to the term “Art Deco”. The School won a Grand Prix for its works on paper and Blampied was one of 12 students who were awarded a Gold Medal as a collaborateur.

He continued illustrative work, including hundreds of political cartoons, and dust jackets for books until 1926, when he sold his house and studio, and traveled in southern France and north Africa for about 5 months. When the market for etchings collapsed during the Great Depression, Blampied reinvented himself as a cartoonist and caricaturist at an exhibition in 1931 called "Blampied's Nonsense Show".

In May 1938 Blampied was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists. Later that year he was asked to prepare some new illustrations for a lavish edition of Peter Pan, the rights to which had been bequeathed by J. M. Barrie to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. The Blampied Edition of Peter and Wendy was published in late 1939 or early 1940 by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and by Scribners in the USA, and is one of the finest illustrated editions of this book.

By the time Peter Pan and Wendy was published, Blampied had moved from London to Jersey with the intention of settling there. Blampied and his Jewish wife were trapped there for almost 5 years by the German Occupation of the island during World War II. He was commissioned to design bank notes and postage stamps for the island; he sneakily incorporated the letters GR (monogram for George Rex) into one of the stamp designs, to demonstrate loyalty to King George. He also designed a stamp in 1947 to celebrate the liberation of Jersey.

Blampied died in Jersey on 26 August 1966, aged 80 years. His ashes were scattered in St Aubin's Bay, Jersey.