Twenty-six magical images gleaned from almost two hundred wood engravings made by George A. Walker for extremely rare editions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (And What Alice Found There) published by Cheshire Cat Press in 1988 and 1998, respectively.
Nineteen year old George A. Walker was a first year student at the Ontario College of Art when he met O C A printmaking instructor Bill Poole in 1980. For some time Bill had it in mind that he wanted to make a hand-printed edition of the ‘Alice’ books. After a few months’ acquaintance with his student’s work ethic and unique image vocabulary, Poole decided that George would be the perfect artist to illustrate them! Bill somehow managed to convince young George of the grandeur of his vision. Then all that was required was for George to teach himself how to engrave on wood as that was the traditional way to print images alongside hand-set text. The project evolved into a ten-year collaboration between Joe Brabant (a member of the Lewis Carroll Society), Bill Poole, and George Walker, the goal of which was to publish the first Canadian edition of Alice in Wonderland, with Joe acting as editor, George as engraver, and Bill as typesetter and printer. On completion of the the first volume, the three then started in on Through the Looking Glass, which took an additional ten years to complete!
George’s Alice prints are mad and wonderful, everything so carefully rendered, tiny and complex and maybe slightly askew. And bear in mind that relief printing requires the images to to be carved backwards on the block to come out the right way after printing! George often likes to quote the Cheshire Cat who allows as to how ‘We’re all mad here!’