Robert Gibbings was born in Cork, Ireland in 1889. He studied at University College, Dublin and at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, while attending evening classes in engraving. He was a founding member of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1919. For a time he worked as a commercial artist designing for Eno's Fruit Salts, Findlater Port and Imperial Tobacco, until Jonathan Cape commissioned his first bookErewhonin 1922. This was followed by a commission from the Golden Cockerel Press, of which Gibbings later became the second and definitive owner.

Between 1923 and 1933 he made Golden Cockerel Press into a major vehicle for wood engraved book illustration and fine book production. Of the 72 books produced in those nine years, 48 were illustrated with engravings. After giving up the Press he taught typography at the University of Reading.

On retirement he became successful with a sequence of relaxed, easy to read travel books. They became a way of life to him. He built his own boat, wide enough to accommodate his ample girth and wrote 15 books based on his experiences as a traveler and bon viveur, particularly along the inland waterways of Britain. Gibbings died in 1958.

Taken from:Out of the Wood British Woodcuts and Wood Engravings 1890-1945, The British Council 1991