The Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) is a UK-based artists’ exhibiting society, formed in 1920, one of its founder-members being Eric Gill. It was originally restricted to artist-engravers printing with oil-based inks in a press, distinct from the separate discipline of woodcuts. Today, its support extends to other forms of relief printmaking, and awards honorary membership to collectors and enthusiasts. History The Society of Wood Engravers was founded on 27 March 1920 by a group of 10 artists who all wanted to promote wood engraving as a medium for modern artists. Unlike other societies of the time devoted to various aspects of relief printmaking, the SWE survived, successfully engaging up-coming generations, and celebrates its centenary in 2020. The liberation of wood engraving as a medium for artists was begun in the 1890s. Charles Ricketts and Charles Haslewood Shannon were the first in modern times to cut the blocks of their own designs or, more to the point, create their designs by the process of engraving them. This was well before the SWE was thought of. The foundation of the Society built on the development of this approach by a later generation of artists and in the Modernist era. Their names are listed below. Historically, white-line engraving on end-grain wood and black-line work on the plank side of the wood were both referred to as ‘woodcuts’. The habit of calling the first method ‘wood engraving’, and the second ‘woodcut’, crystallised after World War II. The Society went into abeyance during the 1960s but was revived in 1984 by Hilary Paynter. The major regeneration of the SWE, virtually amounting to a re-foundation after a difficult mid-century, was built on the distinction between ‘wood engraving’ and ‘woodcut’: by then the more visible as the two traditions developed in different ways. Now that synthetic materials can be used for engraving on, it has been suggested that it is the fine engraving rather than the material engraved which really defines the medium; this is the quality many practitioners are drawn to and the reason for the continued growth of the Society. The SWE supports all kinds of relief printmaking but chiefly promotes fine wood engraving – as its name implies. Founder members Philip Hagreen Lucien Pissarro Robert Gibbings E M O’Rourke Dickey Sydney Lee Noel Rooke Edward Gordon Craig Eric Gill Gwen Raverat John Nash Aims The SWE was founded primarily to promote wood engraving