Obituary – Simon Brett   1943-2024

Simon Brett, the world renowned wood engraver who was also an accomplished writer, educator and Marlborough resident, died due to complications from Parkinson’s on December 29, 2024.

Simon Brett was born in Windsor in 1943 and grew up in London. His father was chief administrator at St Bart’s Hospital and the family lived in a flat above Hogarth’s famous murals which were, perhaps the first paintings to make an impression on him.  He was educated at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire where the sculptor, John Bunting, taught him drawing and inspired him to become an artist. He chose St Martin’s School of Art over university where he was taught by the wood engraver, Clifford Webb. This experience was to have a huge influence over him but first he pursued painting as a career. Encouraged by his great aunt, the Bloomsbury artist, Dorothy Brett, he spent two years living close to her in Taos, New Mexico, painting and selling his work. Before he returned to England he also spent time painting and working in France and Denmark.

In 1971 Simon Brett was appointed to teach art at Marlborough College. There he met the artist, Juliet Wood, who became his wife. The many messages that Juliet has received from Simon’s former students are testament to his brilliance as a teacher.

It was during his eighteen years at Marlborough College that Simon gave up painting to pursue his career as a wood engraver. His drawings are meticulous and  expressive as well as investigative. Between 1981 and 1988, he published ten books under his own Paulinus Press imprint, winning the Francis Williams Illustration Award (National Book League / Victoria and Albert Museum) for the first of them, The Animals of Saint Gregory, in 1981.

When Simon was commissioned to illustrate The Reader’s Digest Bible for The Folio Society in 1989 he gave up teaching to work full time as a wood engraver. He also illustrated classic titles for the Folio Society such as Clarissa, Jane Eyre, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, The Folio Golden Treasury, Middlemarch, the poetry of Keats, Shelley and Byron, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and The Legends of the Ring and of The Grail.

Despite three very important religious wood engravings and a strong Catholic education he did not have a firm faith and was keen to expand his reputation beyond that of a religious wood engraver. This he was able to do with for example (among many others) with an edition of Shakespeare’s Pericles which aimed to ‘stage the play on the page’ by means of some 98 images on over 140 blocks in collaboration with Barbarian Press in Canada.

Simon was instrumental in helping to keep alive the art of wood engraving which he says was beginning to die out in the nineteen seventies. His books, An Engraver’s Globe which highlights the work of over two hundred wood engravers from twenty-eight countries, together with Engraving – How to do it have helped to revive and sustain this very specialised art. From 1986-1992 Simon was Chairman of The Society of Wood Engravers(SWE) and remained closely associated with the SWE throughout his life. 

In 2013 a retrospective of Simon Brett’s work was seen at the Bankside Gallery London, North Wall Gallery, Oxford and at the Holbourne Museum, Bath, accompanied by a substantial catalogue An Engraver’s Progress: Simon Brett – Fifty Years of Wood Engraving which contains nine essays.  

Simon’s legacy will continue. He told Marlborough.news in 2019, “Wood engraving is a reviving art – we pulled it round and there are enough younger people coming into it to keep it going. It hasn’t got stuck with the people who revived it.” In 2020 the Society of Wood Engravers celebrated its centenary anniversary.

In 2019 Simon published The Life and Work of Clifford Webb.  Clifford Webb (1894-1972) was one of Britain’s foremost wood engravers and an illustrator of children’s books and had, of course, taught Simon at St Martin’s. Speaking to Marlborough.news, Simon said, “The book is a tribute to him and a thank you for my career. The first half of the book concentrates on his life and the second on his art. It is packed full of pictures, photos and engravings.”

Simon staged a last exhibition with his wife, Juliet, in The White Horse Gallery in 2023. Entitled ‘From Drawing’ the exhibition brought together their recent work, their very different skills, but also their complementary approaches. Simon’s work depicted the Roman emperor and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, based on different sculptures of his head and revealing the aging process. Simon commented, “The changing head appears almost like time-lapse shots and shows the different ways you can render a head in wood engraving. Not many wood engravings are based on figures. It is more common to see landscapes and animals.”

Simon’s second series of engravings in the exhibition were based on his drawings of people who had been influential in his life, starting with his great aunt, Dorothy Brett.

Simon continued to work in his studio at the bottom of his garden until his death. Despite suffering from Parkinson’s he was still able to produce the couple’s 2024 Christmas card which depicts his daughter and his new granddaughter. He is survived by his wife, four stepchildren, a daughter, eleven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

In the words of Juliet, Simon’s wife of fifty years – “Simon believed that you bring to the end of your life a strong responsibility for how you’ve lived that life, how you’ve spent whatever talents you were given.

He spent his life trying to prove his worth as an artist.

…Is this good enough?, he would ask. Will it do?

Now he’s left the stage and what have we got?

All his imaginative engravings…and his drawings…and his writings…and his earlier paintings, produced over what seems like several life-times are superlatively – good enough, and massively – will do.

And then there was all that support of other artists so that they could achieve their best.”

Simon Brett – Born 27^th May, 1943. Died 29^th December 2024. The Telegraph and The Marlburian Club have also published obituaries.