The Society of Wood Engravers claims: “Once you’ve felt the lure of wood engraving, it can be hard to resist.” This seems about right if you take as your example local artist Peter Lawrence, the society’s current chairman.

For him the ‘lure’ took hold nearly 20 years before he began wood engraving in 1990. He explains: “I’d been fascinated by it since college in Bristol. Not that it was on the curriculum; it was thought far too old-fashioned for that. But I saw an exhibition of Peter Reddick’s in Bristol and he told me a bit about it. I’ve been interested ever since, collecting engravings and books with engravings in. But being an art student at that age I thought it looked far too difficult.”

Wood engraving is perhaps the single art form that Britain can claim to have invented. Developed by the Northumbrian engraver Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) known for his illustrated books on natural history, it was the most popular technique for magazine and book illustration for much of the 19th century. It was superseded by photographic processes in the last decade of that century. Outmoded as a means of commercial reproduction, wood engraving lived on as a medium for artists, seeing two waves of ‘re-invention’: the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1890s, and Modernism in the 1920s. Today, it survives in the hands of enthusiasts, and is once more undergoing a revival.

Much of that is down to the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE). Originally founded in 1920 by artists such as Eric Gill, Robert Gibbings, Gwen Raverat, Lucien Pissarro, and John and Paul Nash, flourishing until after the Second World War, it died out by the 1970s.

It was re-founded in 1984. Now this year, “Oxford is going be the centre of the wood engraving world — for a few weeks in June,” according to Peter. He has organised two exhibitions in Oxford, running concurrently, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of SWE’s reformation.

One is their annual touring show, at Art Jericho, King Street until June 27. This exhibition of over 100 works of relief printmaking from local, British and international artists, has already been to London, Bristol, and Newcastle. Works include Japanese Garden from Peter Reddick, Sideways Nude from Debbi Sutcliffe from Milton, Ron Wilkinson’s On Ivinghoe Beacon, Andrew Anderson’s Iffley Church, as well as three from Peter Lawrence including his award-winning St Ives. The other is at the North Wall Gallery in South Parade until June 20. 6/25 presents engravings from the six chairmen of the SWE this past 25 years. Peter Lawrence will give wood-engraving demonstrations at the gallery on Saturday, June 13, and 20.

I had my own demo when I met Peter for this interview. The tools have not changed since Bewick’s day. And what wonderful names they have: spitstickers, scorpers, tint tools, gravers, all complete with mushroom-shaped handles that fit neatly in the palm of the hand. There’s the brayer (roller) too, and the leather-covered sandbag to rest the block of wood on while cutting (less often wood these days than synthetic material; the favoured box wood is in short supply). It’s charmingly archaic.

To produce a wood engraving, the artist uses a graver (held like a computer mouse) to incise an image directly into an end-grain block of wood. There’s no room for error. As cuts are made into the wood the artist is, effectively, ‘drawing with light’, with a white mark as opposed to the black of pencil or pen.

It’s very much hands-on, utilising hand skills that are becoming redundant in today’s computer age. Also time-consuming; engraving a typical small block can take up to 20 hours for the cutting, double that with printing. One took Peter 400 hours, but, he adds, once made the blocks can be used endlessly.

It’s hard to conceive the determination it takes to learn this art. Peter says he mostly had to teach himself. He had not done anything of the kind before, apart from a weekend course.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” he admits. “But by 1990 I was secure in job and life; I’d reached middle age, and I thought ‘what would I like to do for myself?’. I decided to give up freelance illustrating and ‘have a go’ at engraving. I deliberately wanted to set myself a challenge. I’d always drawn in black and white. I’d done quite a few illustrations in the style of engraving, but in pen and ink. So, the drawing part came easily, but you have to learn the technique, you basically have to start again.”

After five years of doing conventional kinds of engraving, animals, landscapes, the usual subject matter, Peter got very interested in abstract work, especially the St Ives artists. He went down there after the Tate opened, was inspired and started painting again, something he’d not done since art school.

He then started thinking, “If I can draw and paint what I like, why don’t I engrave what I like?”. That was the start of his abstract engravings. He remembers it as daunting, but as a book designer (he is managing director of Oxford Designers & Illustrators), as someone with an eye for the underlying abstract elements of page design, it was perhaps not so surprising that he took this path. It is these abstract engravings that Peter is most well known for today. He exhibits regularly at SWE shows, has shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, and has won awards.

lThe Society of Wood Engravers 71st Annual Exhibition is on at Art Jericho, King Street, Oxford, until June 27. 6/25 is at the North Wall Gallery, South Parade, Oxford, until June 20.