Alan Reynolds Stone, CBE, RDI (13 March 1909 – 23 June 1979) was an English wood engraver, engraver, designer, typographer and painter.
Biography
Stone was born on 13 March 1909 at Eton College, where both his grandfather, E. D. Stone, and father, E. W. Stone, were assistant masters. He was educated there and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in history in 1930.
He had no clear idea of his future, and, at the suggestion of Francis Scott, a young don at Magdalene, almost drifted into a two-year apprenticeship at the Cambridge University Press, where he came under the influence of Walter Lewis and, more importantly, F. G. Nobbs, the overseer of the composing department. Nobbs, to quote Stone, 'whisked me out of the hand-composing room into his office' where he taught him to appreciate letter design. A chance encounter with Eric Gill on the London to Cambridge train led to Stone spending a fortnight with Gill at Piggotts in Speen, Buckinghamshire engraving an alphabet on wood.
In 1932 he moved to Taunton, where he spent two years working at the printing firm of Barnicott & Pearce, a very different experience from his time in Cambridge. His experience of printing convinced him that this was not what he wanted to do for rest of his life. At Taunton he came across some old wood blocks which Barnicott gave him, and, in a bookshop at Combwich, he started to buy the wood engraved books of the 1850s and 1860s. He had already come across the wood engravings of Thomas Bewick at Cambridge, and, in 1934, 'sacked himself' and became a freelance wood engraver, moving to Codicote near Hitchin.
He married the photographer Janet Woods in 1938. They had four children – the painter Edward Stone (1940), the designer Humphrey Stone (1942), the illustrator Phillida Gili, and Emma Beck, wife of artist Ian Beck. His wife had a 30 year long relationship with Kenneth Clark.
The family were friends of the poet Cecil Day-Lewis and his family. In 2017 his son, the actor Daniel Day-Lewis named the character of his final film 'Reynolds Woodcock', as a reference to him, and his typeface designs were used for the titles of the film.
He was elected a member of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1948. In 1953 he was appointed a CBE and moved to the Old Rectory in Litton Cheney near Dorchester, where he lived until his death.
Commercial work
Stone's output was considerable. Nearly all of his contemporaries would have seen his work, although few knew his name. A common sight in most high streets was the logo that he designed for Dolcis and which featured on the frontage of all their shoe shops.
In 1949 he redesigned the famous clock logo of The Times.
He engraved the Royal Arms for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953 and the official coat of arms for Her Majesty's Stationery Office in 1955, still reproduced today on the cover of the UK passport.
He also designed the coat of arms for the British Council.
He designed a number of Royal Mail postage stamps, starting with the 1946 Victory stamp.
He designed the £5 and £10 bank notes respectively in 1963 and 1964 – including the Queen's portrait – for the Bank of England.
Stone is perhaps best known for his lettering. Stanley Morison, the typographer, valued him above all for this ability and said to him: anyone can draw trees. Stone's lettering was hugely admired and he worked in many media.
In 1939 Stone started to teach himself to cut letters in stone. His expertise in lettering led to a number of prestigious commissions for memorials.
In 1952 he carved the memorial tablet to employees of the museum who died in World War II in the Grand Entrance of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This memorial complements the Eric Gill memorial to employees who died in World War I. In 1965 he carved the memorial to Winston Churchill and the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in Westminster Abbey. In 1966 he carved the memorial for T. S. Eliot in the abbey. One of his latest works, in 1977, was the gravestone of composer Benjamin Britten.
In 1954 he designed the Minerva typeface for Linotype, intended to complement Gill's Pilgrim in display sizes. He also designed a proprietary face named after his wife, Janet.
In 1956 Stone was elected as a Royal Designer for Industry for his work in Lettering.
Wood engravings and book illustrations
Stone was a self-taught wood engraver, which makes his achievements more remarkable. He had little difficulty moving from the graver and tools of the wood engraver to the chisel and mallet of the stone carver. Most of the commissions discussed above were wood engravings, as was most of his work.