Prints I wish I had published 11th January - 9th February 2019
bernard jacobson gallery
On the cover
Albrecht Dßrer The Deposition of Christ from the Large Passion Woodcut Paper size: 17 5/16 x 12 ins (43.9 x 30.5 cms)
 Image size: 15 1/4 x 10 7/8 ins (38.8 x 27.7 cms) see p. 11-12
For further information, please contact: mail@jacobsongallery.com tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3431
Prints I wish I had published 11th January - 9th February 2019
Including works by Thomas Hart Benton, William Blake, Marc Chagall, John Constable, Robyn Denny, Albrecht Durer, Sam Francis, Paul Gauguin, Goya, Stanley William Hayter, Hiroshige, David Hockney, Hokusai, John Martin, Henri Matisse, Bruce McLean, Robert Motherwell, Edvard Munch, Samuel Palmer, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Rembrandt, Ed Ruscha, William Tillyer, J.M.W Turner, Andy Warhol, Grant Wood and others.
bernard jacobson gallery 28 duke street st james’s london sw1y 6ag tel +44 (0)20 7734 3431 fax +44 (0)20 7734 3277 | mail@jacobsongallery.com www.jacobsongallery.com | Bernard Jacobson Limited Registered No 00962605 VAT No GB 510329685
In 1969 Bernard Jacobson opened his first London gallery; a fourth-floor walk-up on Mount Street, Mayfair dealing in prints by international stars, including Warhol and Oldenburg, as well as publishing prints by leading British artists including Malcolm Morley and Robyn Denny. Printmaking fitted the radical, pop-sensibility of the time and Jacobson was part of that heady explosion of interest in the medium.
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While Jacobson would quickly go on to broaden the scope of the gallery, printmaking was its foundation and printmaking and print dealing remain at its heart. The gallery now holds the most comprehensive collection of Matisse prints of any commercial gallery in the world and regularly publishes and stages exhibitions of new print portfolios by artists including William Tillyer and Bruce McLean. As the gallery approaches its half century in 2019, it is fitting that this landmark year opens with an ambitious two-part exhibition exploring Jacobson’s personal and abiding love of prints and some of the remarkable works published by the gallery during an eventful 50 years in the business. For Jacobson, printmaking has always been more than just a more accessible medium for collectors, although that is also a legitimate part of its appeal. Printmaking is a dynamic, expressive and diverse medium which offers the artist unique scope for innovation and experimentation. These two exhibitions aren’t intended to be exhaustive, although they do demonstrate the cornucopia of approaches and mark making offered by printmaking - they are a personal selection of some of Jacobson’s favourites; a stunning collection of the prints he wished he had published and highlights from 50 years of the prints he did. The year opens with Prints I wish I had published, a masterclass of the huge range of approaches and techniques offered by printmaking. Featuring more than 30 artists, including some of the most important names in art from the past 600 years, this first exhibition is a rare opportunity to see some of the greatest works produced in the print medium. Our selection of highlights from this feast of printmaking, opens chronologically with Albrecht Dürer’s 15th century woodcut, The Deposition of Christ from the Large Passion - one of a set of 12 woodcuts on the crucifixion and passion by the artist. Dürer is widely held to be one of the greatest printmakers of all time and this densely populated work with figures thronging around the prone figure of the Saviour and his griefstricken mother, give us thrilling proof why. This is a work of intense detail and drama, rendered with technical verve and virtuosity.
Hiroshige, with his sumptuous coloured woodblock - ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world), is one of the leading names of Japanese printmaking. The poetic and dreamlike Cherry Blossoms at Honmoku in Masashi Provence, from his 1858 series, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is a typical landscape by the master - which in turn, would go on to influence many European artists. Gauguin was one such, although in a style altogether hotter and more raw. Gauguin’s woodcut Noa Noa (1893-94) was one of 10 works intended for a book project, Noa Noa, based on Gauguin’s journals from Tahiti. The title refers to the gardenias worn by the Tahitian girls in the hair; “Téiné merahi noa noa (now very fragrant)”. Few artists have surpassed the confident line of David Hockney, particularly in the drawings and prints created in the 60s during the heady early days of his post-RCA success. The lithograph, Figure by Curtain (1964) is a humour-infused portrait of Hockney’s first dealer, Kasmin, seemingly emerging on stage to take a bow in his trademark neat suit and dark framed glasses. If Hockney was the chronicler of the fashionable and often louche artistic figures of the ‘swinging’ pop generation, Ed Ruscha’s work is rooted in the pared down West Coast world of long vistas and empty horizons. Made in California (1971) is an iconic screenprint from his word print and painting series, evoking the blazing sun and jaunty confidence that defines the Sunshine State. Our selection here ends with William Tillyer, a sublime Yorkshire artist who we will return to in the second print exhibition. Twelve Clouds (1968) is an early zinc etching which just pre-dates the 50-year working relationship between Tillyer and Bernard Jacobson. It depicts with simplified, flattened forms, themes first worked in the conceptual installation, Eight Clouds (1968); a hard-soft reimagining of the North Yorkshire sky, created with bone white pebbles on dusky blue felt. Tillyer has long been energised by the act of printmaking and has employed a dizzying array of techniques throughout his long career – most recently with the publication in 2018 of the folio of À Rebours, an edition of 52 prints inspired by Huysman’s 19th century novel.
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Robert Rauschenberg, along with his close friends Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly, is seen as a bridge from America’s great aesthetic movement, Abstract Expressionism, to a new world that allowed especially the movement which swept the world in the sixties, Pop Art. For a couple of years I was Bob’s British dealer and it was thrilling for me to make visits to Captiva in Florida, his main home at that point, and Lafayette Street in New York City. To be a bit critical about a great American artist for a moment, Bob’s greatest days were well behind him by the time I got involved. The dynamic and hugely inventive years were the mid-fifties through the sixties. And when it came to print-making, the legendary Tatyana Grosman of ULAE fame, would get him to eke out so many wonderful prints. This print is not in fact one from those great early years but from the 80s. It was also produced and published by the great ULAE and stands up extremely well against the more innocent and enormously inspired golden moment. Bob could be capricious. He could be kind to me beyond the call of duty. He also could be mean spirited too. Probably a great artist!
Robert Rauschenberg Bellini III 1988 Intaglio etching with lithograph in colours on Arches wove paper, Edition of 49 149 x 95 cms (58 3/4 x 37 1/2 ins)
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I bought my first print by James Rosenquist decades before I became his world dealer in the early 2000s. It was so very cool, like the man himself. I bought Tony Shafrazi’s collection of prints from him, Warhols, Lichtensteins and Rosenquists and several other artists, because Tony, who was an artist way back then, wanted to leave London and move to New York. Tony was thrilled by the sale and I, in turn, was thrilled by the purchase. Jim would be considered in the top half dozen New York Pop artists from the sixties. A wonderful painter, who was proud to tell you that he began his career painting gigantic billboards. He learned how to get the froth on a glass of beer to perfection. He could paint bottles, cups, all kinds of foods and drinks with amazing precision. This, plus his wonderful natural gift, his imagination, stood him in great stead when he painted great Pop Art pictures. He was also a great printmaker.
James Rosenquist Horse Blinders 1968 Lithograph in six colors on magnani paper, Edition of 41 Paper size: 71.1 x 101.6 cms (28 x 40 ins) Image size: 50.8 x 71.2 cms (20 x 28 ins)
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I launched the Mao portfolio of ten screenprints in London in 1972. That was really fun and really exciting for me, a kid in London in my late twenties. Kasmin brought Peter Fuller the writer to my gallery. He thought Peter and I should know each other. Peter disliked me, probably for taking Andy Warhol seriously. I would later fall out of love with Andy’s work but eventually become a great friend of Peter, who some time later, I founded the magazine Modern Painters for. Peter is gone, tragically killed in a car accident, although somehow Andy lingers on‌
Andy Warhol Mao 1972 Screenprints in colours, on Beckett High White paper 91.44 x 91.44 cms (36 x 36 ins)
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My love affair with Henri Matisse began when I copied a Fauve painting in my pre-teens. I didn’t really know what it was about. It was just that it meant so much to me. I felt it was something to copy. I was in love all right. And when L’Escargot, the enormous cut out which was made a year before his death in 1954, arrived at the Tate Gallery in 1962, it was like falling in love again, to the same person! It can be done, you know. Besides being perhaps the greatest artist of the 20th Century − or could it be his friend and rival, Picasso − it is wonderful to know that he made hundreds of great prints. Etchings, aquatints, linocuts, lithographs. And, please excuse my enthusiastic but vulgar admission, I am the largest holder in the world of his works in these media. The paintings are now far too rare, and enormously expensive.
Henri Matisse Le renard blanc 1929 Lithograph on Arches Velin paper, Edition of 75 Paper size: 66 x 50.5 cms (26 x 19 7/8 ins) Image size: 51.5 x 36.8 cms ( 20 1/4 x 14 ½ ins) £ 63,000 $ 80,000
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Henri Matisse Jeune femme et son chien
Henri Matisse Nu couché
1929 Etching on Chine appliqué, Edition of 25 Paper: 28 x 38 cms (11 x 15 ins) Plate: 14 x 22 cms (5 1/2 x 8 5/8 ins)
1929 Etching on Chine appliqué on wove paper Edition of 25 Paper size: 28.6 x 38 cms (11 1/8 x 14 5/8 ins) Plate size: 12.3 x 15.5 cms (4 3/4 x 6 1/8 ins)
£ 27,000 $ 35,000
£ 27,000 $ 35,000
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Henri Matisse La Persane 1929 Lithograph on Arches Velin paper, Edition of 50 Paper size: 63 x 44.5 cms (24 3/4 x 17 1/2 ins) Image size: 44.8 x 29 cms (17 5/8 x 11 3/8 ins) ÂŁ 133,000 $ 170,000
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Edvard Munch Harpy 1894 Drypoint printed in black Image size : 28.9 x 21.8 cms (11.4 x 8.6 ins) Sheet size : 54.5 x 43.4 cms (21.5 x 17.1 ins) £ 35,000 $ 45,000
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Albrecht Dürer Die Heimsuchung (from Marienleben) ca 1503 Woodcut 29.7 x 21 cms (11.7 x 8.3 ins) £ 27,000 $ 34,700
Albrecht Dürer Der zwölfjährige Jesus im Tempel – Christ among the doctors ca 1503 Woodcut 29.7 x 20.9 cms (11.7 x 8.2 ins) £ 27,000 $ 34,700
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Pablo Picasso Jeune sculpteur au travail From the Suite Vollard 1933 Etching, Edition of 250 45 x 34 cms (17.7 x 13.4 ins)
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Paul Gauguin La Femme aux Figues
Paul Gauguin L’Univers est créé
1894 Etching in zinc with open bite work applied a reed pen Paper size: 47.8 x 63.5 cms ( 18 3/4 x 25 ins) Plate size: 27 x 42 cms (10 1/2 x 16 1/2 ins)
Paris, winter 1893-1894 Woodcut, on boxwood Paper size: 24.8 x 40 cms (9 3/4 x 15 3/4 ins) Image size: 20.5 x 35.7 cms ( 8 x 14 ins) £ 110,000 $ 142,000
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David Hockney Untitled 1966 Etching Paper size: 67 x 39.5 cms (26 3/8 x 15 1/2 ins) Plate size: 35 x 22.3 cms (13 3/4 x 8 3/4 ins)
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David Hockney Edward Lear 1964 Etching and aquatint Edition of 50 61 x 51 cms (24 x 20 ins)
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Dürer would make etchings and woodcuts that quite simply can take your breath away. An utter master of the technique. The fewer words I say, the better. Just stare in awe.
Albrecht Dürer The Deposition of Christ from the Large Passion Woodcut Paper size: 17 5/16 x 12 ins (43.9 x 30.5 cms) Image size: 15 1/4 x 10 7/8 ins (38.8 x 27.7 cms)
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Paul Cézanne changed the visual perception of the world as significantly as Claude Debussy changed music or James Joyce reinvented literature. From awkward, clunky and fairly undistinguished paintings early in his career in the mid 19th century, he would end his days in Aix-en-Provence, the town where he was born, having slowly, slowly made paintings and watercolours of devastating depth and beauty to become, as Picasso put it so succinctly to his friend Matisse, “….the father of us all.’ His prints are few in number and not the most important part of his lifetime’s achievements, but we should be so thankful that he did make them and we still have them.
Paul Cézanne Guillaumin au pendu 1873 Etching on paper 15.6 x 11.7 cms (6.1 x 4.6 ins) £ 1,000 $ 1,300
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Henri Matisse Patitcha 1947 Aquatint on BFK Rives paper, Edition of 25 Paper size: 55.5 x 38 cms (22 x 15 ins) Image size: 34.9 x 27.6 cm (13 3/4 x 10 7/8 ins) ÂŁ 93,000 $ 120,000
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Pablo Picasso is quite likely an art genius and to think that you can still to this day buy etchings, signed by the artist himself for small sums of money, constantly surprises me. What a wizard with the pencil or with the etching needle as well. I would have been quite ecstatic to have been the publisher of the Vollard Suite. But that gift was handed to a dealer from an earlier ago, the great Ambroise Vollard, the man most responsible for the success of Picasso’s (and Matisse’s) art hero, the giant of giants, Paul Cézanne.
Pablo Picasso Le repos du sculpteur IV pl. 65, from La Suite Vollard
Pablo Picasso Le Repos du Sculpteur devant le Petit Torse pl. 53, from La Suite Vollard
1933 Etching on Montval laid paper, Edition of 310 33.6 x 44.4 cms (13.2 x 17.5 ins)
1933 Etching, Edition of 260 19.5x26.8 cms (7 3/4x10 5/8 ins)
Pablo Picasso Vieux sculpteur et modèle assoupi avec un groupe sculpté représentant des chevaux luttant pl. 64, from La Suite Vollard
Pablo Picasso Sculpteur et son modèle avec un groupe sculpté représentant des athlètes pl. 54, from La Suite Vollard
1933 Etching on Montval paper, Edition of 260 33 x 44.4 cms (13 x 17.5 ins)
1933 Etching with drypoint on solid laid paper with watermark “Vollard”, Edition 260 33 x 41 cms (13 x 16 ins)
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I don’t remember where or even when I bought this print by Utagawa Kunisada. It was probably in a print shop in Bloomsbury in the sixties. I just liked it. I certainly never knew then that in his day his reputation was far greater than either Hokusai or Hiroshige. I probably paid about £20 for it at the time, which is what it is most likely worth today. I just like it! Even after an extremely long career as printmaker, Kunisada would remain a trendsetter right up to his death in 1865, around the time when the French Impressionists became inspired by the work.
Utagawa Toyokuni III (aka Kunisada) Untitled Colour woodcut on paper c. 1860 34.5 x 24.7 cms (13.6 x 9.7 ins)
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Thomas Hart Benton means two things to two differing people – he is the teacher, friend and inspiration of Jackson Pollock and he is also a wonderful printmaker. As great as John Ford. As great as John Wayne. As great as Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. The America of its heroic roots, the Wild West. Its prairies and wilderness. A very special American, a great human being and a marvellous artist.
Thomas Hart Benton Cradling Wheat 1939 Lithograph, Edition of 250 24.6 x 30.6 cms (9.7 x 12 ins)
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Edvard Munch The sick child 1896 Lithograph printed in colour Image size: 41.6 x 56.2 cms (16.4 x 22.1 ins) Sheet size: 53.7 x 69.2 cms (21.1 x 27.2 ins) ÂŁ 250,000 $ 322,000
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The great British painter Robyn Denny is so out of favour these days that it hurts. His paintings are hugely ambitious and also huge in their scale. The haunting canvases, in mysterious close-toned colours, from the early to fairly late sixties, are a marvel. He and his friend Richard Smith and a few others swept aside the muddy and all-too-earnest canvases from the forties and fifties and visually introduced us to a new world, one we had not seen or experienced before. Although I published huge numbers of his prints in the late sixties, through the seventies and eighties, this little gem was a year before my time. I adore its peaceful silence. I adored the man too. Heroic, immovable in his deep beliefs, honest as the day, kind and generous. Robyn Denny Untitled 1968 Screenprint, Edition of 100 36 x 30 cms (14 1/4 x 11 3/4 ins) ÂŁ 800 $ 1,000
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Richard Smith loved paper. He loved folding it, multi-layering it, stapling it, holding sheets of it together with paper clips, he loved drawing on it, making magical marks in delicious and sensational colours. He also made great prints – etchings, lithographs, screenprints, dozens of techniques. I published a great many works by this master of abstract art. I wish I had published Second Time Around, but that was 1969, one year before he and I would begin our many, many collaborations. A huge British talent.
Richard Smith Second Time Around 1969 Lithograph, Edition of 70 93.3 x 25.4 cms (36 3/4 x 10 ins) ÂŁ 500 $ 650
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Ah, Robert Motherwell! Perhaps America’s greatest artist! Certainly he would be at the very top of the list of anyone with half an eye, and who I would take seriously. Late in his life he became an extremely prolific printmaker and actually had a printing press installed in his Greenwich Studio. (I say Ah, Motherwell!, because when I was courting Pierre Soulages, trying to convince him I was worthy of being his British dealer, I explained that we were the world’s largest dealership for the American. Pierre exclaimed ‘Ah, Muzzerwell!’ and we shook hands.)
Robert Motherwell Black on Black 1978 Lithograph and chine collé, Edition of 58 70.5 x 56.5 cms (27.8 x 22.2 ins) £ 5,000 $ 6,500
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Katsushika Hokusai is generally considered the greatest printmaker that Japan has ever produced. And this print, The Great Wave, is probably the greatest and certainly the most famous one he ever made. It was published around 1830, in the late Edo period and is from a series entitled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Not even the experts have a clue just how many copies were actually printed, although from the wear on blocks of the most recent copies, it is thought that perhaps thousands of copies were made. Everyone loves it and it was a great inspiration to artists like Van Gogh, Gauguin, CĂŠzanne and Monet, as it still is to this day to millions of artists. It was quite a commercial venture, for both the artist and the publisher, and the woodcut would be printed on demand, which was huge. Probably large numbers have been lost over time, through disasters such as earthquakes and fires. Today it remains extremely rare surprisingly, and this copy is considered a great one.
Katsushika Hokusai In the well of the great wave off Kanagawa Woodcut 24.5 x 36.4 cms (9 11/16 x 14 6/16 ins)
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It would have been wonderful to publish this print by Stanley William Hayter. His workshop, Atelier 17 in Paris would become world renowned and the Englishman would make work with Picasso in his new home town and later with Jackson Pollock in NYC during the war years. William Tillyer went straight from the Slade in 1962 to work with Hayter for a year. Besides working for art giants over several decades, he was a prolific printmaker in his own right and his etchings remain revered and sought after to this very day.
Stanley William Hayter Araignee 1967 Etching, Edition of 50 Paper size: 65 x 49.5 cms (25 1/2 x 19 1/2 ins) Plate size: 39.5 x 24.7 cms (15 1/2 x 9.7 ins) ÂŁ 9,000 $ 11,600
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Rembrandt van Rijn A Beggar seated on a bank (Self-Portrait)
Rembrandt van Rijn Saskia with pearls in her hair
1630 Etching 11.7 x 7 cms (4 5/8 x 2 3/4 ins)
1634 Etching 8.7 x 6.6 cms (3 7/16 x 2 5/8 ins)
ÂŁ 67,000 $ 86,300
ÂŁ 35,000 $ 45,000
Stringing a few words together on Rembrandt is as daunting as doing the same thing on Beethoven or Shakespeare. A genius of a painter but also a genius of a printmaker. The late self portrait by Rembrandt at Kenwood House in Hampstead is perhaps my favourite painting in this country. It has haunted me for over sixty years. A Beggar Seated on a Bank from 1630 shows the artist in a very different mood – a sort of 17th century angry young man, alone with his thoughts.
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir died one hundred years ago, in the beautiful town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, on the French Riviera. When he moved there in 1907, with the need for warmth to alleviate his painful advanced arthritis, the population was a mere four thousand people. He was a truly great master of painting the female nude and can be seen in the grand tradition which runs from Rubens to Watteau. He is possibly the end of that great line, although one of his biggest admirers, Matisse, is the continuation after him. Renoir is both loved and despised. To love the best of his paintings is as easy as loving life itself. The detractors seem to have a problem with just about the entire world adoring his paintings, while they, the art aficionados, seem to have the problem of loving Beauty. I guess I am of the people, not the art world. He didn’t make many prints, his days of his long, long career, taken up with paint brush in hand, even until the very end of his life, when the brush would have to be strapped to his wrist.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir Le chapeau ĂŠpinglĂŠ ca. 1894 Etching and drypoint 12.1 x 8.3 cms (4.8 x 3.3 ins)
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It was great fun working with Ed Ruscha in the seventies and into the eighties. It kind of summed up the Los Angeles spirit for me, even if he did come from Oklahoma. Actually, when he was working on Made in California I was already working with him. So I could well have been the publisher of that very glamorous screenprint which seems to epitomize the artist and also the glitz of the Pacific city, Happy days!
Ed Ruscha Made in California 1971 Screenprint, Edition 90 51 x 71 cms (20 x 28 ins)
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Is William Blake a writer first, or an artist? I find it hard to say as he was a master in both, which is very rare. Although he was hostile to organised religion, he was actually a devout Christian, and was baptised just a few doors away from here, at St James’s Church on Piccadilly. He was born in 1757 a couple of minutes walk from this gallery, in Soho. His influence on art and literature is awesome. From Yeats to Vaughan Williams, right up to Bob Dylan and beyond. Known for being a great visionary in both art and poetry, he also had visions – despite seeing angels and God, Blake also claimed he saw Satan on the stairs of his South Molton Street home. Now there’s a thought for you! He can be enjoyed by children and even older children aged 90 and over. He can be loved by Hippies and fashionistas, looking for meaning to their lives. He was also taken very seriously by both Freud and also Jung. William Blake Illustration to ‘The Book of Job’ Every One Also Gave Him a Piece of Money (19) 1823-25 Line engraving on India paper (chine collé on wove paper Paper size: 37.7 x 27.5 cms (14.8 x 10.8 ins) Plate size: 21.5 x 17 cms (8.4 x 6.7 ins) £ 3,000 $ 3,800
William Blake Illustrations of the Book of Job And I only am escaped alone to tell thee; I am young and ye are very old 1823-25 Engraving on Chine collé paper Paper size: 37.8 x 27 cms (14.8 x 10.6 ins) Plate size: 21.5 x 17 cms (8.4 x 6.7 ins) £ 3,000 $ 3,800
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I wasn’t really crazy about the Homage to the Square paintings and prints by Josef Albers. I found them a bit dry and too academic for my liking. I think I found more interesting insights about colour from Goethe than I did from Albers or his colleague Johannes Itten actually. But when I clapped my eyes on the Ten Variants set of prints he made in 1966, I simply adored them. I still do. They are exquisite jewels of high Modernism and they sing! He was primarily an extremely significant teacher and also a link from Europe to America. To work alongside Kandinsky and Klee at the Bauhaus and considerably later to teach Bob Rauschenberg at Black Mountain College certainly sounds astonishing.
Josef Albers Ten Variants, Variant VII 1966 Silkscreen, Edition of 200 Paper size: 43.18 x 43.18 cms (17 x 17 ins) Image size: 25.4 x 35.6 cms (10 x 14 ins)
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Henri Matisse Grande Masque 1948 Aquatint on Marais paper, Edition of 25 Paper size: 65.5 x 50 cms (25.8 x 19.7 ins) Image size: 43.3 x 34.8 cms (17 x 13 3/4 ins) ÂŁ 118,000 $ 150,000
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I knew Andy Warhol in the late sixties and the early seventies, and the Factory was such a buzzing studio. Andy would watch and observe. He was kind of invisible but also very present, all at the same time. ‘Wow’ he would say, whenever he wanted to, whatever that word meant. When Samuel LeFrak dragged Andy and I into his bedroom and showed the Pop artist a dreadful sculpture he had just bought in Israel, Andy exclaimed ‘Wow!’ Whether he is a good artist or not, time will tell. But if I had published this screenprint of Liz Taylor I would at least be very rich, on this one image alone.
Andy Warhol Liz 1964 Offset Lithograph on paper 58.7 x 58.7 cms (23 1/8 x 23 1/8 ins)
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Edvard Munch The Cat 1896 Drypoint Paper size: 30.8 x 36.3 cms (12 1/8 x 14 5/8 ins) Image size: 15.8 x 12.8 cms (6 1/4 x 5 ins)
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When people start to rhapsodise over The Scream by Edvard Munch I want to scream. The art world has tried to turn it into a piece of Pop Art. A kind of Norwegian Andy Warhol. In fact Andy late in his life did a Warhol print of The Scream. The artworld, or should I say the art market, attempts to package all and everything, even The Scream. Although I cannot say that he makes an art that is close to my heart, I would definitely list him as one of the great artists. Great in the same way as his fellow countryman, the playwriter Henrik Ibsen. This is an entirely different culture and outlook on life. One of cold and dark endless winters. They projected a truly lonesome attitude, one of great wisdom and a tragic sadness. Ibsen had said, “The majority is always wrong, the minority is rarely right.” I couldn’t agree with you more, Henrik, although what a depressing kind of a world. And Munch said, “Just as Leonardo da Vinci studied human anatomy and dissected corpses, so I try to dissect souls.” Andy did understand the marketplace, although he didn’t seem to have a clue what Ibsen and Munch were about. Munch wallowed in DEEP, Andy wallowed in SHALLOW. As Walt Disney said he would make Ludwig van Beethoven famous in his 1940 movie entitled Fantasia, with an animated version of the Pastoral Symphony, so would Andy make Munch more famous with his screenprint version. The film cost $2.3 million at the time and Ludwig would do his bit to make the Disney empire a little more wealthier. Munch would assist Andy to get a bit richer in 1982. Ludwig would indeed go on to selling truckloads of records (and later CDs), especially of the beautiful and magnificent Sixth Symphony (The Pastoral). Although, to this very day, many will not be able to hear the work without thinking of centaurs and flying horses gamboling over the countryside.
And a version of The Scream did sell for the staggering sum of $120,000,000 in 2012, at the time a world record in auction, even more than a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which only manages to squeeze home at $110,000,000 in auction a couple of years ago. But really it’s all Pop Art anyway. Perhaps Munch was more of a visionary than I realised. Maybe The Sick Child of 1886 was an incredibly early statement of how sick the artworld child actually is. But he grew up with sickness all around him, losing his mother when he was five and a sister at early age, both from tuberculosis. My obsession with Frederick Delius is pretty well known, at least by those people who know me well. Munch was also fairly obsessed with this British composer who lived just outside Paris. In fact there is extremely extensive correspondence between the composer and painter and Munch made many portraits of his friend – paintings, drawings and even lithographs. They would see a great deal of each other, in Paris they both lived, and also at the composer’s spiritual home, Norway. In his music you can hear the English countryside, as well as his beloved Paris and certainly the fjords of Norway. The lonely otherworldliness can be felt so deeply from both these artists. Munch was a great admirer and friend of Gauguin, as was Delius as it so happens, who actually bought one of his very greatest masterpieces, Nevermore from him. It is now in the Courtauld collection. Anyway, that’s all beside point, other than the significant fact that Edvard Munch was a very great artist. Once again, I have to add that he was a giant as a printmaker. And perhaps this is his best and most important work. Andy thought so.
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When I think of Grant Wood I think of Robert Frost. Two Americans that the most powerful and rich community in the world can be truly proud of. If the poet was about to spend his entire life writing one great sonnet after another, powerful and beautiful and filled with great depth of feeling and insight, the artist has achieved the same heights. I love his prints. I believe. I am truly moved by this American vision.
Grant Wood March 1939 Lithograph, Edition of 250 22.8 x 30.2 cms (9 x 12 ins) ÂŁ 5,100 $ 6,500
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Richard Hamilton Swingeing London 67 1967-8 Lithograph on paper Image size: 71.1 x 49.8 cms (28 x 19.6 ins)
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I realise that I have said some tough words about the work of David Hockney, an adorable man, although one I felt had lost his way in art since the seventies. To make up for this and to make my position quite clear, I consider his sixties etchings and drawings wonderful, and I still cherish those wonderful times with him in London, New York, Los Angeles and Paris. All his homes and studios in those four cities. And I still adore those etchings!
David Hockney Figure by Curtain 1964 Lithograph, Edition of 75 49.9 x 64.8 cms (19.6 x 25 1/2 ins)
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Hercules Seghers The Flight to Egypt c. 1610-1638 Drypoint etching 21.3 x 28 cms (8 3/8 x 11 ins) The work included in the show is a photograph.
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I very much wanted to include Hercules Seghers in this exhibition. I only discovered his prints a couple of years ago. They are mainly landscape and they are absolutely wonderful. Walking along Fifth Avenue I saw a huge banner outside the Metropolitan Museum, announcing the exhibition. It was quite a substantial show but I had no problem with looking at these prints, reasonably small in scale and humble on the eye and on the heart. I was completely smitten and slowly travelled from one and on to the next. Three things struck me. Firstly, they were great in their quietness. Secondly, the artist’s biggest collector was none other than Rembrandt. The great man himself. And thirdly, they were extremely rare because over the years they had been badly treated or thrown away or lost. They obviously weren’t taken too seriously in their own time because many had been used to wrap bars of soap in! It said so on the wall of the Met, so the information had been well researched, and also true. This made the works even more poignant for me. When I attempted to borrow one for this show I discovered that
virtually all the known copies were in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I couldn’t get one. This is actually a photograph. The feeling I had was nothing to do with possession of art and the protection of it. Nothing to do with the fact great art is always ahead of its time. Not much to do with the stupidity of so many collectors. No, it was much more to do with something that had managed to touch me very deeply, the experience had evaporated with time – and I was left with a warm feeling of a wonderful state of loss, one that was healthy and good, and bore out my beliefs more than ever before, that not only don’t you need possessions, but they are actually bad for you anyway. The blurred memory was the best feeling of all. And the feeling of a feeling dimmed yet very real and alive. I hated so much, and I loved so much. I was left with a sensation that very good art and great art should be seen and experienced and then simply carried in your head, your very being. Owning it would simply weaken it, and this is only a photograph. I’m sad that one of his works is not in this exhibition, although perhaps that is for the better.
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Anthony Gross RA Landscape with Dogs and Pigeons
Anthony Gross RA Pujols
1937 Etching, from the edition of 50 impressions 21 x 32 cm (8.3 x 12.6 ins)
1932 Etching, from the edition of 40 impressions 19 x 29 cm (7.5 x 11.4 ins)
ÂŁ 3,500 $ 4,500
ÂŁ 2,800 $ 3,600
Anthony Gross loved life, he adored the company of women, while blissfully content with his wife Marcelle for over half a century. He loved his second home in France. He loved his wine. Even as early as 1934, while still in his twenties, he directed the short film, La Joi de Vivre, while at that same time making some of the most delightful and idyllic etchings of the countryside around Pujols in France. When he once came to us for dinner back in the seventies, he radiated a feeling of understanding and enjoying, what you might call, the better things in life. He was the most wonderful company, a great raconteur, and not to forget a true master of printmaking. I did publish a few prints in his later life, although, if I were of his generation I definitely would have published these etchings.
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Do you prefer an omelette or scrambled egg? Do you prefer Matisse or Picasso? And, if it is Picasso (not me), do you prefer his Cubist paintings or those by Braque? I think that is the way it is with Constable or Turner. I personally prefer Constable but I won’t hold it against you if you prefer Turner. After the great paintings of Gainsborough, these two pushed into the world of Romanticism and we, at least I, love them both. The barber’s son and his rival, the miller’s son, would eventually make paintings and watercolours that would inspire and influence Delacroix over in Paris, with his paintings that led the way for the Impressionists. These two men achieved something enormous, in affecting the work of painters from other countries. Probably something that has not happened since. How wonderful, to be the publisher of Turner’s Junction of the Severn and the Wye!
J.M.W. Turner Junction of the Severn and the Wye 1811 Etching, aquatint and mezzotint on paper 18.1 x 26.3 cms (7.1 x 10.4 ins)
£ 3,000 $ 3,800
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Samuel Palmer was able to produce some of the greatest, some of the most English, some of the most magical and some of the most mystical etchings this tiny island has made. Whenever I am upset by the sheer philistinism of our people, I can remember Palmer and be happy again.
Samuel Palmer ‘The Herdsman’s Cottage’ or ‘Sunset’
Samuel Palmer The Rising Moon’ or ‘An English Pastoral’
1850 Etching 43.2 x 29.9 cms (17 x 11 3/4 ins)
1857 Etching 26.8 x 36.5 cms (10 1/2 x 14.4 ins)
£ 5,500 $ 7,000
Sold
£ 3,500 $ 4,500
Samuel Palmer Christmas
Samuel Palmer Opening the Fold
Samuel Palmer The Sleeping Shepherd
1850 Etching 12.4 x 10.2 cms (4 7/8 x 4 ins)
1880/1926 Etching 16.4 x 23 cms (6 1/2 x 9 ins)
1857 Etching 36.5 x 26.8 cms (14.4 x 10 1/2 ins)
£ 4,500 $ 5,800
£ 3,000 $ 3,800
£ 4,000 $ 5,200
Samuel Palmer ‘The Early Ploughman’ or ‘The Morning Spread upon the Mountains’ 1861 Etching 27 x 36 cms (10 5/8 x 14 1/8 ins)
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William Blake Thenot remonstrates with Colinet…or “Thine ewes will wander…” 1821 Wood engraving Paper size: 19.4 x 28 cms (7.63 x 11 ins) Chin collé 8.6 x 12.8 cms (3.38 x 5 ins) Image 3.3 x 7.4 cms (1.3 x 3 ins) £ 1,200 $ 1,500
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John Constable View on the River Stour (‘The White Horse, River Stour’)
John Constable A Heath (Hampstead Heath, Stormy Noon - Sand Diggers)’
1830 Mezzotint by David Lucas, as directed by John Constable, printed on laid paper Paper Size: 26.7 x 35.8 cms (10 1/2 x 14 ins) Plate Size: 18 x 22.1 cms (7 x 8.7 ins) Image Size: 14 x 18.9 cms (5 1/2 x 7 1/2 ins)
1830 Mezzotint by David Lucas, as directed by John Constable, printed on laid paper Paper Size: 31.8 x 40.4 cms (12 1/2 x 16 ins) Plate Size: 17.6 x 22.1 cms (7 x 8.7 ins) Image Size: 14.1 x 19 cms (5 1/2 x 7 1/2 ins)
£ 2,000 $ 2,500
£ 2,000 $ 2,500
John Constable painted so many of the most adored and also the most indelible images that any artist was able to achieve. His great painting skills, along with a rich admiration and passion for his beloved Suffolk, its trees, its bridges, its rivers and brooks, its dramatic English skies and perhaps most importantly its River Stour. But from 1829 until his death Constable devoted considerable time, energy and money to the business of printmaking and publishing, activities that had concerned him hardly at all in earlier years. The principal outcome was a series of twenty-two mezzotints engraved under his close supervision by the young David Lucas and entitled Various Subjects of Landscape, Characteristic of English Scenery, form Pictures Painted by John Constable, R.A. Based on a wide range of oil sketches and finished paintings (perhaps also one or two watercolours or drawings) which Constable had made at various periods of his life, the series was first issued in parts at irregular intervals between June 1830 and July 1832. A supplementary series was begun but not published in Constable’s lifetime. I myself published a series of prints by contemporary artists in 1976, to commemorate the birth two hundred years earlier of probably England’s greatest and certainly most loved artist. It was launched at the Tate Gallery that same year and I was so proud of it. By the way I still am to this day. More wonderful memories.
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Pebbles on the Beach at Seaton Carew may have links with Ben Nicholson and Victor Pasmore, two artists he gained great inspiration from while in his teens, but it is clearly showing obvious signs of the William Tillyer to come. Made in 1958, this is a print I wish I had published, even if at the time I was at school and he was just 20. I wish I would have produced it, like a music publisher would love to have published Clair de Lune by Debussy or In our Time by the youthful literary giant Ernest Hemingway. Fortunately the artist would go on and on from that moment onward, never letting me, and especially not himself, down.
William Tillyer Pebbles on the Beach at Seaton Carew 1958 Line on copper Plate size: 21.7 x 25.5 cms (8 1/2 x 10 ins)
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John Martin Paradise With the Approach of the Archangel Raphael
John Martin Creation of Light
1824/25 Mezzotint with touches of drypoint Paper size: 26.7 x 37.6 cms (10.5 x 14.8 ins)
1824 Mezzotint Paper size: 25.6 x 34.7 cms (10.1 x 13.7 ins)
ÂŁ 9,000 $ 11,500
ÂŁ 8,500 $ 11,000
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John Martin painted some of the most cataclysmic and apocalyptic pictures ever made by a British artist, gigantic in scale and as powerful and overwhelming and sensational as possibly imaginable. From such humble beginnings, he was born in 1789 in a one-room cottage in Northumberland, in 1818 Martin, bought himself a house in Marylebone from the sale of the painting The Fall of Babylon. He had already told a friend, “it shall make more noise than any picture ever did before.” He would become the friend of other giants of science and the arts, such as Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday and Turner. These gigantic paintings would have a huge influence on Hollywood film directors, such as giants like D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. de Mille, even on to later directors like George Lucas in Star Wars. He even influenced literary masters, including H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. The prints are obviously less spectacular in scale although, small as they may be, just as wonderful. One of his great print projects was based on Milton’s Paradise Lost.
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Francisco Jose Goya Y Lucientes El Vergonzoso (Plate 54) (Los Caprichos Series)
Francisco Jose Goya Y Lucientes Volaverunt (Plate 27) (Los Caprichos Series)
Francisco Jose Goya Y Lucientes Quien Mas Rendido? (Plate 61) (Los Caprichos Series)
Etching with aquatint 31.5 x 20.5 cms (12.4 x 8.1 ins)
Etching with aquatint 31.5 x 20.5 cms (12.4 x 8.1 ins)
Etching with aquatint 31.5 x 20.5 cms (12.4 x 8.1 ins)
ÂŁ 7,500 $ 9,700
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David Sylvester once said to me that if his house was on fire he would run from the flames, clutching his much-loved print by Barnett Newman, I think he should have grabbed all those Goya prints under his other arm. When David sadly died, the great man’s art was auctioned. I bought the Goyas that day, a truly great painter, who just happened to be a great printmaker too.
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Georges Braque’s Les Citrons has haunted me for half a century. When I first saw it at London’s great print gallery, Lumley Cazalet, it was £200. At that moment in time you could have said a million pounds. It would crop up every now and again, in and out-of-the way gallery or auction houses, for double the price. Then triple. Then quadruple. I did eventually buy it one sunny day when I was visiting Frankfurt. I had, at that period, had a pretty good run, sales-wise. So, I thought, damn it! I’ll just get it. The lithograph cost me £3,000. At least now I have it.
Georges Braque Les Citrons 1954 Lithograph, Edition of 100 36.8 x 50.8 cms (14 1/2 x 20 ins)
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Utagawa Hiroshige is far less famous than Hokusai, although he too was hugely prolific in the technique of woodblock and is probably considered the second greatest Japanese artist in this tradition. You will often hear certain art lovers, and artists, who actually feel closer to his work. For instance, the British painter William Tillyer is currently working on a large watercolour project, for which Hiroshige is the source and inspiration.
Utagawa Hiroshige Cherry Blossoms at Honmoku in Musashi Province (Musashi Honmoku no hana) From the series Fuji sanjurokkei (Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji) 1858 Colour woodblock print 38.1 x 25.8 cms (15 x 10 1/4 ins) ÂŁ 5,000 $ 6,400
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I will often say that Paul Cézanne is my favourite artist of modern times, although I quietly wonder if I am lying to myself and I truly mean Paul Gauguin. The paintings and the sculptures he made in Tahiti are an absolute wonder to behold. I have stared at them, constantly, for sixty years now and they just get better and better for me, completely magical. The prints he made in extremely small editions there, by pressing the ink onto the paper by using the pressure from the back of a spoon, they are now rare beyond belief. Later editions, by his son Pola and his friend Louis Roy are good enough for me. I would love one made by the great man himself but I must be realistic. Thank you Pola and Louis. A gift enough! Paul Gauguin Ia Orana Maria
Paul Gauguin Noa Noa
1894-95 Zincograph in gray on fibrous Japanese paper Plate size: 25.6 x 17.7 cms (10 1/8 x 7 3/4 ins) Paper size: 34.3 x 22.9 cms (13.5 x 9 ins)
1893-1894 Woodcut on Chine paper, Edition of 100 40 x 24.7 cms (15 3/4 x 9 3/4 ins)
Paul Gauguin Te Arii Vahine - Opoi La femme aux mangos - Fatigué
Paul Gauguin Titre pour “Le Sourire”
1898 Woodcut, Edition of 30 Paper size: 18.5 x 28.2 cms (7 1/4 x 11 ins) Image size 16 x 28.2 cms (6 1/4 x 11 ins) £ 15,000 $ 19,300
1899 Woodcut Paper size 13.8 x 21.9 cms (5 1/2 x 8 5/8 ins) Image size 10.5 x 20.8 cms (4 1/8 x 8 1/8 ins) £ 27,000 $ 34,700
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Bruce McLean is an extremely witty man and also a highly intelligent one too. He also happens to be exceptionally kind and loving and generous of spirit. His print here is one of the smartest and most humorous works of art by a British artist from just about any period of time. I am proud to be his dealer.
Bruce McLean Pose work for plinths 1971 Black & white lithograph, Edition of 250 60 x 80 cms (23.6 x 31.5 ins) ÂŁ 350 $ 450
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I sold many, many Marc Chagall prints when I worked for a gallery in New York City, to make a little pocket money to get by on. They were made very late in his life. They were not particularly great art but we would sell them at the rate of paperback books by a popular novelist of today. Much earlier in his life he did make great etchings, like this one, which I bought quite recently. Those early paintings, made in his home of Russia, and even more so his first decade or two on his arrival in Paris, are among the great works of a 20th century giant.
Marc Chagall L’Acrobat au violon 1924 Etching and drypoint on wove paper, Edition of ca 150 Plate: 41.8 x 31.8 cms (16.5 x 12.5 ins)
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Patrick Caulfield is the odd man out in a way. He made screenprints that were based on paintings. This could be read as if they were actually reproductions. That is completely the wrong reading. The paintings were produced with the full intention of making them into screenprints. The paintings can often be quite rough and seemingly unfinished. It is only in the realised end product, the print itself, when you get the full impact, its completeness, glamour, high-pitched colours that you can enjoy its finished beauty.
Patrick Caulfield Ruins 1974 Screenprint, Edition of 40 Image size: 50.8 x 76.3 cms (20 x 30 ins) Paper size: 57.8 x 90.8 cms (22 3/4 x 35 3/4 ins)
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Ben Nicholson and his wife Barbara Hepworth and his friend Henry Moore made British Modernism inspiring and supreme. His intense concentration and precision were and in fact still are a wonder and a feast for the eye. His vision and his courageousness would pave the way for a tougher and more sophisticated beauty to come. Although he made few prints, they have the same stature in their way as do his paintings.
Ben Nicholson long horizontal Patmos 1967 Etching with hand colouring, Edition of 50 34 x 48 cms (13.4 x 18.9 ins) ÂŁ 12,000 $ 15,500
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David Hockney Henry and Christopher 1967 Hand-coloured lithograph with collage, Edition of 15 56.5 x 76 cms (22.2 x 29.9 ins)
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If it took William Tillyer until the 21st Century to become, in my opinion, Britain’s great painter, he had for me reached that accolade for his watercolours considerably before, perhaps a full decade earlier. As far as an astonishingly innovative and inspired printmaker of the first order, he showed evidence of that before I even knew his name. He had been a student of Anthony Gross, the great printmaker and teacher at the Slade in 1960, and worked with the legendary printmaker and printer, Stanley William Hayter at his Atelier 17 in Paris in 1962. Although I have published a couple of hundred images by him since 1970, he had already made Twelve Clouds in 1968, selling the odd copy to a friend, or a friend of a friend.
William Tillyer Twelve Clouds 1968 Zinc etching on paper, uneditioned 60.5 x 45 cms (23 7/8 x 17 3/4 ins)
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I fell in love with this Sam Francis lithograph when I first saw it in 1968. I was working for a print seller in New York City and I would stare at it all the time, until one day I asked if the gallery would let me have this print instead of one month’s salary. The owner agreed, and I got it. To save money I would walk to my home, between 10th Street and Fifth Avenue, where I slept on the owner’s floor. Not too comfortable – but free. The lithograph is a memory of very happy times, and I still love it. The story has a wonderful end to it. I became a good friend of this great Californian artist and also became his dealer.
Sam Francis Affiche Kunsthalle Bern 1960 Colour lithograph on Rives BFK, Edition of 100 85 x 63.5 cms (33 1/2 x 25 ins)
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