Letter from Douglas Percy Bliss, Glasgow, to Thomas Balston, 1950 April 10 : autograph manuscript signed.

Discussing, in response to a query from Balston, the recent history and status of the art of wood engraving in Scotland; stating that though he is Scottish he got his training (at the Royal College of Art) in South Kensington and "never knew that anything equivalent to a 'movement'" took place in Scotland; stating that "Scots dealers were busy with etchings but rarely bothered with wood-engravings ... the craft was taught at the four Scots schools of art but not well. Good students learned by imitating Gill or whoever was decorative appealing & seemed easy to imitate", mentioning Ernest Stephen Lumsden and his Society of Artist Printers who "did much for prints but did not confine his membership to Scots"; also naming some practitioners of the craft in Scotland, including (George) Elmslie Owen and Lennox Paterson; concluding that there is nothing that could justifiably be termed a wood engraving movement in Scotland; "Dealers won't help. Students are all agog about colour & colour only & won't concentrate on black & white, - especially when they see no future in it."