William E. C. Morgan began working in wood engraving, but while in Italy on a Prix de Rome in 1924 he began engraving on copper, which culminated in his creation of the line engraving "The Source," which won for him the Logan Medal at the Art Institute of Chicago's international print exhibition in 1928. He produced 35 works between 1926 and 1932, of which only 23 have been found. This is a fine example of that work.
The first and the most striking of W.E.C.Morgan's symbolic nudes, 'The Source' is arguably the artist's most powerful line engraving. A masterpiece of original line engraving, 'The Source' depicts the imaginary guardian of the spring of life where it rises amongst the gnarled and twisted trees of an enchanted wood. It was through this work, in 1927, that W.E.C. Morgan rose from being regarded simply as a talented line engraver, to being seen an original printmaker of true imaginative power.
There was a retrospective exhibition of Morgan's work at Georgetown University Library in 1994. The catalogue comments about ‘The Source’: "In October of his final year, his friend Geoffrey Wedgwood urged him to send three of his line engravings to Bertha Jaques, the executive secretary of The Chicago Society of Etchers, for consideration in their upcoming International Exhibition of Etchings at the Art Institute of Chicago. In his covering letter of October 23, 1927, he told Ms. Jaques that the prints were "for your approval ... thinking that you might be interested in my work." “Ms. Jaques was much impressed with Morgan's print 'The Source,' a striking Amazonian nude, spear in hand, standing guard over a tiny spring bubbling up out of its primeval source. So were the judges. They awarded him the Art Institute of Chicago's Logan Medal and its first-purchase prize."