18 November 2003. Martin Andrews gave a lecture as lively and ebullient as its subject, with a multitude of slides, presented with a wide range of anecdote and other material drawn from the research for his recently published biography. It was fascinating to trace Gibbings' early life: from the vicarage in County Cork to the Slade School; Noel Rooke's wood-engraving classes at the Central which fixed his future career and the harrowing experience of the First World War which left its mark.
We were shown a good selection of his wood-engravings - even an example of his sculpture - and slides showing the working methods of his bookmaking for the Golden Cockerel Press and for the later, popular series of travel books which made him so widely known.
The final glimpse: a cartoon by Hoffnung of the portly bon viveur of later life, glass in hand. Martin Andrews had made Gibbings come alive, as though in the same room.
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