London Original Print Fair 2018

The South African Fine Art Print Fair Visits The London Original Print Fair

By Jeremy Sampson

Grayson Perry, Reclining Artist, Woodcut

“I really love printmaking. It’s like a mystery and you’re trying to figure out how to rein it in.” - Kiki Smith (contemporary artist).

Name a famous painter or sculptor who hasn’t been involved in printmaking? You may be surprised at how difficult that could be.

The 2018 London Original Print Fair (LOPF), held annually at The Royal Academy, Burlington House in Piccadilly, was its customary fourday celebration of print: “Visitors can buy and browse original prints from across five centuries: from old and modern master works to the latest prints launched by today’s top artists.”

This year LOPF featured almost 50 exhibitors – printmaking studios and galleries that hold print - not only from the UK and Europe, but also from China, Japan, and the USA. Classic prints were available by artists like Auerbach, Bacon, Freud, Hirst, Hockney, Matisse, Miro, Moore, Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec. All traditional printmaking techniques were on display, as well as new media digital prints and even 3D prints. From the deceptively simple to the intricately complex, the exhibitors featured many working proof prints, and monotypes hung alongside prints from editions of up to 300.

This is the second time Sharon Sampson and I have visited this London-based Fair and it is undoubtedly one of the global print highlights of the year. It was fascinating to talk to the gallerists, hear about the types of work popular today, what collectors are looking for, the various preferences for art in different parts of the world, in which countries print collecting is highly regarded, and of course the issues involved in the pricing of work.

It is always enriching to speak with the artists themselves and hear a little of their creative journeys. An English artist, used to printing his northern hemisphere landscapes with black matt ink on white paper, had just returned from a visit to Australia. There he discovered that this practice didn’t do justice to his experience of the harsh light of the outback, and so was forced to experiment technically beyond his comfort zone. Eventually he found that the matt black ink began to reflect the glitter of the Australian bush with a magic ingredient: some metallic silver

Mandy Conidaris, a curator on the team of the South African Fine Art Print Fair, also had the opportunity to attend LOPF. She was interested in the seemingly widespread resurgence of the traditional Japanese woodcut technique adapted to contemporary imagery, as well as the number of British and European artists who had travelled to Japan to study this artform. Two diverse aspects of the Fair that also drew her in were the extensive evidence of pure patterned work and abstract work, and the way some contemporary artists had replicated the markmaking and tonal ranges of old Masters, such as Rembrandt, to create their own etched selfportraits.

We hope that this enthusiasm for prints and printmaking will extend into the awareness of young South African collectors; and that anyone interested in prints and printmaking will visit us at the third South African Fine Art Print Fair (FAP), which will take place for four days from 22 to 25 November 2018 in its now-customary venue: the state-of-the-art Business School at The Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) in Illovo, Johannesburg.

Exhibitor applications are open, and the Fair team invites the participation of printmaking studios, galleries that support print, and individual artist/ printmakers from early-career to established. All are welcome – please go to our website for more information: www.safineartprintfair.com