Reflections at Finchingfield, England

John Taylor Arms

John Taylor Arms clearly agreed with the many artists and tourists of then (including Lucien Pisarro) and now who claimed Finchingfield, Essex, England as the most picturesque rural village in England. Here, he has rendered it with as much care as a portraitist. Shown is the shallow ascent of the village toward the crown of St. John the Baptist Church, a Norman structure dating to 1170; at the village’s feet, a mirror-flat duck pond reflecting the Georgian and medieval houses lining the town green. In this second image from the English Series, Arms captures the most minute details in both the village and its reflection, down to the weathered wooden boards of the shed in the lower left. This image garnered Arms five awards between 1939 and 1941.

Today, Finchingfield looks much the same save for improved roads and new road markers. It remains a tourist destination and is a stop along the Dunwich Dynamo, a 112-mile nocturnal bike race that takes place on the full moon of July.

John Taylor Arms, printmaker, lecturer, illustrator, and administrator, was born in Washington, D.C. on 19 April 1887. He first studied law at Princeton University but transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study architecture, earning a Master’s Degree in 1912. He studied with Ross Turner, David A. Gregg, and Felton Brown. For five years after his graduation Arms worked for the architectural firm Carrere and Hastings, before establishing his own architectural firm of which he was a partner.

A gift of an etching kit from his wife, Dorothy, changed the course of his life. He produced his first etching in 1915 and he eventually produced 441 prints, mostly etchings. Arms became one of the most famous printmakers of the first half of the twentieth century. He is mostly noted for his etchings of medieval architecture but early subjects also included ships, sailboats, airplanes, rural landscapes, and the streets, buildings, and bridges of New York.

Arms’ exhibition history was lengthy beginning in 1927 and continuing to 1952. He authored 'Hand-Book of Print Making and Print Makers' in 1934 and illustrated 'Churches of France' and 'Hill Towns and Cities of Northern Italy' by his wife, Dorothy Noyes Arms. His work can be found in most major collections of American prints.

Arms was an activist for printmaking and assisted in assembling exhibitions of American graphic art that were shown in Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Rome; he was editor of the Print Department of Print, A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, and he lectured on the techniques, history and value of original prints. Arms also served as the president of the Tiffany Foundation in 1940. John Taylor Arms died in New York City on 15 October 1953.