POINTS OF CONTACT Printmaking in Britain 1949–2019
Austin / Desmond Fine Art Curated by Julian Page
POINTS OF CONTACT Print stages a distinctive encounter between paper and ink, or support and medium. Paintings or drawings might show accumulated marks made over time, but no matter how long the printing surface has been worked, more often than not, the printed image happens all at once. The moment of impression is a physical compression that also compresses time: the creative labour spent on the print is condensed into the instant of paper passing between rollers, or of a squeegee drawn across the screen. This strange relationship to time is amplified by the multiplicity of prints: single objects manifest their history, whereas prints have multiple histories (and so perhaps no history at all). And across an edition, some prints might be destroyed, some damaged, and some perfectly preserved: how does a print age, when its ageing can encompass all of these possibilities at once? The potential for print to disrupt time plays in the background of exhibitions like this one, with works bound together—or scattered—by seventy years. Laws of Instruments aside (when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail), those seventy years might very easily be characterised as printed years. The historical significance of print between 1949 and the present is profound. Print makes cameo appearances in many of the period’s milestones, and its mechanics of contact even play a starring role in its technological advances. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first moon landing, the twentieth century’s ultimate ‘point of contact’, which generated its own print in the form of footprints on the surface of the moon. The developments of transport which informed so much of twentieth century modernity were also points of contact, just as the electronic and digital technologies that have come to define progress came from print, in the form of printed circuit boards. These
share a functional as well as historical relationship to print, as Jennifer Roberts has shown in her recent Slade Lectures—not least because the inventor of the printed circuit board, Paul Eisler, spent many formative hours in the library of the British Museum studying lithography, letterpress and engraving technologies. Circuit boards are junctions that close and open circuits. So they too are points of contact. There are many links among the exhibition’s artists; a diagram of our connections and associations would make a dense web. At a structural level, print enhances these connections, because publishers and editioners are entities where artists meet or overlap. For a medium of exchange like print, multiple circulation allows images to be disseminated more widely than singular objects. Alongside its odd separation from time, these characteristics make print the medium, more than any other, that creates these points of contact between artists. It connects artistis, like those at either chronological end of this exhibition, whose lives do not overlap. Prints are generated at a point of contact, and themselves become points of contact—in this respect no edition is complete, and prints keep on printing. Alexander Massouras
PLATES
Robert Colquhoun
The Necromancer (1949) Monotype with hand-colouring 56 x 45.2 cm Unique
1
Fred Uhlman
The Studio (1949) Lithograph with hand-colouring 45.6 x 37 cm
2
Naum Gabo
The Lyre Bird (Opus Four) (1950) Monotype 28 x 20 cm Unique
3
John Wells
Topsail (1950) Etching 22 x 19 cm Edition of 25
4
Michael Andrews
Standing Man Holding a Bowler Hat (1951) Etching 24.5 x 16.5 cm (image)
5
William Scott Busby (1951) Lithograph 55.3 x 38 cm Edition of 50
6
Kenneth Martin
Circular Abstract (1952) Linocut 50.6 x 38 cm Edition of 20
7
Eduardo Paolozzi
Man’s Head (1952) Lithograph 65 x 50 cm
8
Keith Vaughan
Old Seaweed Hoist (1953) Lithograph 54.5 x 44 cm Edition of 60
9
William Gear
Untitled (Abstract Composition) (1954) Linocut 40.1 x 56.9 cm Edition of 10
10
Robyn Denny
1B (9) (1955) Monotype 40.5 x 50.8 cm Unique
11
Euan Uglow
Stilton (1960) Etching 12.5 x 10 cm (image) Unique
12
David Hockney
Kaisarion with all his Beauty (1961) Etching and aquatint 69.3 x 50.2 cm Edition of c.50
13
Colin Self
In the Desert (1963) Etching 14.8 x 19.3 cm (image)
14
Allen Jones
Concerning Marriages 5 (Walking) (1964) Lithograph 76 x 56.5 cm Edition of 75
15
Victor Pasmore
Study for Points of Contact No.7 (1965) Lithograph with hand-touching 45.5 x 45.5 cm Unique
16
Derek Boshier
Sex War Sex Cars Sex (1966) Lithograph 60 x 48 cm Edition of 100
17
Paul Feiler
Orbis Monotype 1 (1967) Monotype 25 x 27 cm (image) Unique
18
Ben Nicholson
Storm over Paros (1967) Etching 38 x 43 cm Edition of 50
19
Peter Blake
Babe Rainbow (1968) Screenprint on Tin 64 x 44 cm Edition of 10,000
20
Joe Tilson
Bela Lugosi Journal A (1969) Sceenprint 81 x 60 cm Edition of 150
21
Kenneth Armitage
Untitled (1973) Etching 8.4 x 9.7 cm (image) Edition of 20
22
Patrick Caulfield
She’ll Have Forgotten Her Scarf (1973) Screenprint 61 x 55.6 cm Edition of 100
23
Richard Hamilton
Picasso’s Meninas (1973) Etching with aquatint, roulette and drypoint 76 x 57.5 cm Edition of 90
24
Julian Trevelyan
Holland (1975) Etching and aquatint 79 x 59 cm Edition of 52
25
Gordon House ‘L’ M (1977) Etching 39.5 x 24 cm Edition of 15
26
Patrick Heron
Untitled (Red) (1979) Etching 54 x 68 cm Edition of 50
27
Stephen Buckley
Untitled (Small Etching J) (1980) Etching 28 x 24.2 cm Edition of 40
28
Leon Kossoff
The Letter (1982) Etching 35 x 41 cm Edition of 100
29
Lucian Freud
Girl Holding Her Foot (1985) Etching 89 x 72 cm Edition of 50
30
Paula Rego
The Encampment (1989) Etching and aquatint 56 x 76 cm Edition of 50
31
Terry Frost
At Five o’Clock in the Afternoon II (1990) Etching 75 x 56.8 cm Edition of 30
32
Tracy Emin
OK (1997) Monoprint 58.5 x 79.5 cm Unique
33
Howard Hodgkin
Books for Paris Review (1998) Etching, aquatint and hand-colouring 56 x 51 cm Edition of 80
34
Prunella Clough Compact (1999) Sceenprint 33 x 35.5 cm Edition of 30
35
Peter Doig
Surfer (2001) Etching 166 x 111.5 cm Edition of 46
36
Michael Landy
Annual Wall Rocket (2002) Etching 89 x 77.3 cm Edition of 37
37
Bridget Riley
Brouillard (1981–2003) Sceenprint 100 x 90 cm Edition of 85
38
Keith Coventry
Crack Pipes II (2006) Etching 35.2 x 42.5 cm Edition of 30
39
Frank Auerbach
William Feaver (2007) Etching 63 x 50.5 cm Edition of 40
40
Victoria Burge
Blue Star (2015) Lithograph with hand-colouring 56 x 71 cm Edition of 30
41
Marcelle Hanselaar
The Crying Game 28 (2017) Etching with aquatint 38 x 42 cm Edition of 30
42
Alexander Massouras
Good and Bad at Waiting 3 (2018) Etching 27.5 x 36 cm Edition of 60
43
Kate McCrickard
Benjamin, Stage Right (2019) Monotype 63 x 47 cm Unique
44
ANDREWS, Michael (1928–1995) ARMITAGE, Kenneth (1916–2002) AUERBACH, Frank (b. 1931) BLAKE, Peter (b. 1932) BOSHIER, Derek (b. 1937) BUCKLEY, Stephen (b. 1944) BURGE, Victoria (b. 1976) CAULFIELD, Patrick (1936–2005) CLOUGH, Prunella (1919–1999) COLQUHOUN, Robert (1914–1962) COVENTRY, Keith (b. 1958) DENNY, Robyn (1930–2014) DOIG, Peter (b. 1959) EMIN, Tracey (b. 1963) FEILER, Paul (1918–2013) FREUD, Lucian (1922–2011) FROST, Terry (1915–2003) GABO, Naum (1890–1977) GEAR, William (1915–1997) HAMILTON, Richard (1922–2011) HANSELAAR, Marcelle (b. 1945) HERON, Patrick (1920–1999)
No. 5 No. 22 No. 40 No. 20 No. 17 No. 28 No. 41 No. 23 No. 35 No. 1 No. 39 No. 11 No. 36 No. 33 No. 18 No. 30 No. 32 No. 3 No. 10 No. 24 No. 42 No. 27
HOCKNEY, David (b. 1937) HODGKIN, Howard (1932–2017) HOUSE, Gordon (1932–2004) JONES, Allen (b. 1937) KOSSOFF, Leon (b. 1926) LANDY, Michael (b. 1963) MARTIN, Kenneth (1905–1984) MASSOURAS, Alexander (b. 1981) McCRICKARD, Kate (b. 1974) NICHOLSON, Ben (1894–1982) PAOLOZZI, Eduardo (1924–2005) PASMORE, Victor (1908–1998) REGO, Paula (b. 1935) RILEY, Bridget (b. 1931) SCOTT, William (1913–1989) SELF, Colin (b. 1941) TILSON, Joe (b. 1928) TREVELYAN, Julian (1910–1988) UGLOW, Euan (1932–2000) UHLMAN, Fred (1901–1985) VAUGHAN, Keith (1912–1977) WELLS, John (1907–2000)
No. 13 No. 34 No. 26 No. 15 No. 29 No. 37 No. 7 No. 43 No. 44 No. 19 No. 8 No. 16 No. 31 No. 38 No. 6 No. 14 No. 21 No. 25 No. 12 No. 2 No. 9 No. 4
Points of Contact Printmaking in Britain 1949–2019 2 May–15 June 2019 Wed–Fri: 10.30–5.30pm Sat: Open by appointment Private View: Wednesday 1 May, 6–8pm Final day drinks: Saturday 15 June, 11–4pm Austin / Desmond Fine Art Pied Bull Yard 68/69 Great Russell Street London WC1B 3BN T: +44 (0)20 7242 4443 E: gallery@austindesmond.com www.austindesmond.com Curated by Julian Page www.julianpage.co.uk Text ©Alexander Massouras 2019 Catalogue design by Zeuxis Industries Ltd. Printed by Gomer Press Except where otherwise indicated, dimensions refer to sheet size