Biography
Draughtsman, illustrator and painter Muirhead Bone was born in Partick, Glasgow, and trained as an architect. He attended evening classes at Glasgow School of Art and was self-taught as an etcher. In 1901 Bone settled in London, where he quickly established an international reputation, selling prints for large sums. The first artist to be appointed a War Artist in the First World War, he was also an official War Artist in World War Two. Architectural subjects dominate his printed work in addition to images showing industrialisation and urban development. The author of nearly 500 prints, Bone was knighted in 1937.
Glossary terms
A form of printmaking in which a metal plate is covered with a substance called a 'ground', usually wax, into which an image is drawn with a needle. Acid is applied, eroding the areas of the plate exposed but not the areas covered by wax. The action of the acid creates lines in the metal plate that hold the ink from which a print is made when the plate is pressed against paper under pressure.