Colour lithograph, 'Timber Felling in Essex', Michael Rothenstein, School Prints series; London, 1945.

Colour lithograph in predominantly pinsk and greens showing a country field in which five men fell and saw trees. Two of the men, one dressed in a red and the other a green jacket, saw a tree trunk. Two men watch from steam engines. A third man holds a rope with one end is looped around his waist and attached to one of the steam engines and the other end tied around another tree trunk. He is trying to lift the trunk in this way. A border, consisting of a repeating pattern of crosses, runs around the image, separated from the image by a margin.

Given by Frances Marks

Gift of Frances Marks, from her late father's collection

School Prints series was published in the 1940s. The idea behind the series was to commission established artists to create lithographs which could be editioned in very large numbers and sold cheaply to schools, for display in corridors, classrooms and assembly halls. The pupils would enjoy direct contact with new works of art. The entrepreneur, Mrs Brenda Rawnsley, wrote: 'We are producing a series of auto-lithographs, four for each term, for use in schools, as a means of giving school children an understanding of contemporary art.'

In the spirit of post-war optimism, the artists responded enthusiastically, and submitted sketches to the selection committee, chaired by Herbert Read, which included influential R.R. Tomlinson, London County Council Senior Inspector of Art. Many of the prints depict a familiar world of everyday rural or urban life, some presenting a version of the pastoral idyll (John Nash 'Harvesting') and others scenes of festivity (Barbara Jones 'Fairground'), entertainment (L.S. Lowry 'Punch and Judy') or leisure (John Tunnard's surrealist 'Holiday'). Each lithograph had a drawn frame around the image so that the print could be pinned to the wall.

This lithograph is Rothenstein's first print, a medium for which he became particularly well-known. Rothenstein lived in the village of Great Bardfield, Essex, from the late 1930s; the village became something of an artists' colony, with other residents including Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious and Kenneth Rowntree. The Essex landscape, farms and machinery became the artist's subject.

Set up in 1945 by Brenda Rawnsley, the School Prints scheme commissioned well-known artists to create lithographs, which would then be printed in large numbers and sold cheaply to schools for display in classrooms; the aim was to give 'school children an understanding of contemporary art'. Each lithograph had a drawn frame so that the print could be pinned to the wall. In the spirit of post-war optimism, artists responded enthusiastically. The scheme was a unique attempt at giving children access to original works of art in a period of austerity but ended in 1949 because of financial problems. Many of the prints depict a familiar world of everyday rural or urban life, some presenting a version of the pastoral idyll and others scenes of entertainment or leisure.

E.234-2006