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Ian Strang, 1886-1952 Palace of the Archbishops, Albi, France Etching 9-3/4 x 13-3/4 inches

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Ian Strang
1886-1952

Draughtsman, printmaker, and painter, Strang came by his gifts naturally: he was the son of the artist and etcher William Strang (1859-1921). Born in London, Ian Strang studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art with Henry Tonks and then at the Academie Julien in Paris.

Like his father Strang was a superb draughtsman, a gift much in evidence in his etchings and very much in the Slade tradition of accomplished draughtsmanship. However, his slightly austere style was his own and ran counter to the prevailing 'decorative' tendencies in continental art.

Draughtsman, printmaker, and painter, Strang came by his gifts naturally: he was the son of the artist and etcher William Strang (1859-1921). Born in London, Ian Strang studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art with Henry Tonks and then at the Academie Julien in Paris.

Like his father Strang was a superb draughtsman, a gift much in evidence in his etchings and very much in the Slade tradition of accomplished draughtsmanship. However, his slightly austere style was his own and ran counter to the prevailing 'decorative' tendencies in continental art. His focus was landscape or, really 'cityscape.' With their intense contrast of light and shadow, Strang's views, often of southern European locales, acheive a kind of monumentality within a small pictorial space. Atmospheric but rigorously unsentimental, they are distinctly twentieth-century images that draw on the long traditions of European art.

Strang worked in Belgium, France, Italy, Sicily, and Spain and taught at the British School in Rome. He was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in 1930. Strang exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, and a number of important London galleries. His work remained at a consistently high level throughout his career and is represented in the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and numerous other museum collections in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere.