MODERN BRITISH PRINTS: A BRIEF HISTORY
The exhibition of ‘English Post Impressionists, Cubists and Others’ held at the Brighton Public Art Galleries between December 1913 and January 1914 brought together a group of artists who collectively represented the first real British avant-garde of the twentieth century. Alongside members of the Bloomsbury group, the show also included a section for the more ‘advanced’ artists such as Nevinson, Wadsworth, Bomberg, Epstein and Wyndham Lewis, the latter whom claimed in the catalogue to have formed a ‘vertiginous but not exotic island in the placid and respectable archipelago of English art’. The group harmony implied by this description was far from the truth. While stylistic similarities were easily noticed, alliances and beliefs were far from homogenous. Nevinson, in collaboration with the leader of the Italian Futurists, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, issued his manifesto, ‘Vital English Art’ in June 1914. He immediately alienated those artists whom he named as, ‘great Futurist painters or pioneers and advance-forces of Vital English art’ but whom he had neglected to ask if they considered themselves Futurists or indeed if they even agreed with Marinetti’s views. Wyndham Lewis, Roberts and Wadsworth went on to publish BLAST a month later.
While the Italians utilised a form of Impressionism to depict the new century in a kaleidoscopic blur of colour, the English artists, belatedly christened ‘Vorticists’ by Ezra Pound, preferred a formal means of expression influenced by Cubism and a more primary palette. With emphasis placed on form and structure above narrative content, wood cutting emerged as a medium suited to the ‘new’ art. Despite the Oriental traditions of woodblock printing it was most probable that the English artists were introduced to its possibilities through the work of the European avant-garde, especially Wassilly Kandinsky. From 1913 to 1919 Edward Wadsworth utilised the medium as his primary means of expression, experimenting with limited colours and different papers, producing no editions, just a few unsigned, undated impressions as and when needed. His first solo show at the Adelphi Gallery in March 1919 consisted almost entirely of prints and was met with immediate acclaim. Frederick Etchells wrote in his introduction to this exhibition of the qualities of the wood cut; ‘It does not demand a wall space but yet can have the seriousness and dignity of a large painting in an accessible form.’ He continued, ‘Its intrinsic qualities of surface and texture can be achieved in no other way’. Finally he looked to the future, ‘this much neglected medium is again beginning to receive the attention it deserves: it is a good thing.’
David Bomberg refused his signature to BLAST yet his 1919 book, The Russian Ballet (Cat. No. 1) shows his agreement with the Vorticists on many stylistic points. While waiting for the verdict of the Canadian War Memorials Committee on his second version of Sappers at Work (the first attempt having been rejected) he found himself unable to draw, so turned instead to lithography, a medium he had been introduced to during his apprenticeship to the German immigrant lithographer Paul Fischer. The six prints that form the booklet were conceived from earlier drawings and reflect his extreme pre-war style to which he never again returned, preferring to concentrate on a truer vision of the natural world.
The turbulent war years go some way towards explaining the wave of nostalgia that passed over English art in the 1920s and 30s. The wood engravings of Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) were widely admired, this interest encouraging Robert Gibbings to establish the Society of Wood Engravers in 1920. Graham Sutherland led a group of his contemporaries at Goldsmiths College to admire the mysticism of the work of Blake and Palmer and produced many fine engravings in the style himself, including Michaelmas (Cat. No. 26). Although the technique had been taught at the Central School of Art prior to the War it was mainly associated with the Private Presses illustrated book and did not have the popular appeal of etching. Nevertheless much effort was put into raising the status of the medium including annual exhibitions first at the Chenil Gallery and then from 1925 at the Redfern. John Buckland Wright worked extensively for the Private Presses, including Gibbings’ Golden Cockerel Press, but also produced a large number of wood engravings as free plates, such as Etude (Cat. No. 14) and Composition No. 3 (Cat. No. 15).
Edward Burra was introduced to the technique of printing from wood by Paul Nash and in 1929 made a group of nine, six of which were exhibited at the Redfern Gallery in November that year. Although carved from end-grain blocks suited to engraving, the way in which they were cut was more akin to wood cuts, a technique that remained virtually ignored at the time. Of the nine, only those that were exhibited were ever titled, numbered or signed and the blocks lay forgotten until rediscovered by the journalist Barrie Penrose in 1970. Penrose, with the assistance of Alexander Postan saw the blocks reprinted and sold in an edition of 45 plus 9 proofs by Observer Art before being given to the Tate (Cat. No.s 16 and 17). The prints from the original ‘edition’ were numbered from 25 but Burra admitted that he had only ever printed a nominal number from each block, carefully inking the blocks before printing onto a thin Japan paper, using the back of a spoon to apply pressure. The woodcuts were some of the only prints Burra ever made and show him experimenting with the medium, using both sides of the block to save money.
Burra’s method of utilising a different technique in order to explore a different aspect of his art was one with which many artists could identify. Those such as the group based around Stanley William Hayter at his Atelier 17 in Paris believed that the only way for Modern art to progress was through experimentation and through the development of new processes and techniques. He utilised various materials in the printing process, such as pressing fabric into the soft ground on a plate before inking, and discovered that a cut engraved so deep that it would not hold ink, instead printed as an embossed white line. This latter technique can be seen in Danae of 1954 (Cat. No. 32) and also in John Buckland Wright’s, Baigneuse et Satyre No.II (Cat. No. 30) of 1935. Hayter’s meticulous development of his prints, from a basic idea through to the final state, encouraged artists to aim for a new level of professionalism in their art. Plates would be worked, proofs pulled, and then re-worked again until he was at last content with the impression, a process well illustrated by Cinq Personnages (Cat. No. 31), which is annotated ‘4th State 4 SWH 30.1.46’, a proof without the colour that appeared in the final impressions.
It was via Hayter’s Atelier 17 that young British artists such as Henry Moore, John Buckland Wright and Julian Trevelyan first came into contact with the leaders of the European Surrealist movement including Miro, Picasso and Chagall. Hayter’s belief that co-operation between artists was essential led him to open his Parisian studio to others, making it an informal meeting place for the exchange of ideas. His own art combined his training in engraving from Joseph Hecht with the automatic drawing method associated with Surrealism. Hayter was ‘officially’ recognised as a Surrealist by Breton and exhibited in the 1926 London show but left the movement after the 1938 dispute between Breton and Eluard. In London, Henry Moore’s visits to Paris in the 1920s were apparent in his collaboration with other like-minded artists who formed a society and produced a journal, The Island, the plates of which show a keen awareness of European artistic progress. Ceri Richards too combined his musical and poetic interests with those in Surrealism, as is apparent in The force that through the green fuse drives the flower (Cat. No. 36).
The interest in relief printing ignited by the wood cutters and engravers continued into the 1930s with Claude Flight and his linocut pupils at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art. The school, established by Ian McNab in 1925 offered students the opportunity ‘to express their own individual ideas rather than be forced to accept worn-out academic theories’. Flight’s classes were popular and his vigorous promotion of the medium attracted students from all over the world, including the Swiss Lill Tschudi and Australians such as Evelyn Syme, Dorrit Black and Ethel Spowers. Alongside many articles, he also published two books on the subject, which stressed the importance of producing art that was recognisable as a linocut and within which the composition should be clear and carefully planned. In order to aid better design, Flight promoted the abandonment of the key block in favour of multiple blocks (usually three or four) of equal significance. The key block had been traditionally printed in black or another dark colour and was printed first, serving to unite the composition by outlining objects and providing the dark masses of work. Flight argued that his method would result in a more balanced composition.
Claude Flight had clearly defined aims for the style he promoted, urging his students to capture the spirit of the age in which they were living. He saw linocuts as the perfect medium for expressing the dynamism of the constantly changing world. 'The lino-cut is different to the other printing mediums, it has no tradition of technique behind it, so that the student can go forward without thinking of what Bewick or Rembrandt did before, he can make his own tradition, and coming at a time like the present when new ideas and ideals are shaping themselves out of apparent chaos, he can do his share in building up a new and more vital art of tomorrow.' Just as Marinetti had urged the Italian Futurists to modernise their art in order to depict the new speed of the world that had been brought about through industrialisation, Flight wanted to bring art in line with the multitude of British technological developments. The London Underground perfectly encapsulated this idea of modernity, speed and excitement and prints such as Sybil Andrews’ Straphangers (Cat. No. 39) and Rush Hour (Cat. No. 40) are two of the many images produced by her and fellow student, Cyril Power, that depict this innovation. Both artists also turned to sporting events for inspiration, Power’s dynamic image of a racing boat in The Eight (Cat. No. 53), being possibly the most successful in capturing the physical exertion of the sport.
Driving Flight’s teaching was a clear social conscience that wanted to introduce modern art to a wide audience. The aim for his linocuts was that they could be printed by hand in small editions of fifty or sixty, which could then be sold cheaply for around the price of a beer or a cinema ticket, their small size ensuring that they would fit into even the most compact interior. In reality this goal was never achieved, mainly due to the intensive effort that was required to print even a few impressions. However Flight was not alone in his vision and the 1930s and 40s saw a variety of projects aimed at widening the appeal of contemporary art. The Contemporary Lithographs venture of 1937-38, although short-lived, was highly commendable and innovative for the time. Established by Robert Wellington of the Zwemmer Gallery with the technical advice of John Piper, the project involved the commissioning of leading artists to produce original lithographs. These were printed in large editions (the first series was advertised in an edition of 400) and distributed to institutions including schools, colleges, libraries and universities. With artists such as Edward Wadsworth (Untitled; Port Scene; Imaginary Harbour, Cat. No. 65) and Vanessa Bell (The School Room, Cat. No. 61) participating, the initiative promised success. It however floundered due to paper shortages at the start of the war and the inability of clients to understand that they were buying an original work of art, rather than a reproduction.
Despite the apparent failure of Contemporary Lithographs, the stage had been set and there was a growing desire to see art more widely available. Importantly, the venture had heralded the return of lithography as a major medium in British printmaking. The war saw a multitude of commissions for contemporary prints, such as those published by the National Gallery for the Ministry of Information following a recommendation by the War Artist’s Advisory Committee. This mixture of reproduction and original prints included Barnett Freedman’s The 15 Inch Gun Turret, H.M.S. Repulse, August 1941 (Cat. No. 62) for which he was paid £50 for the drawing and £100 for the craftsmanship required to transfer the image to the stone. The Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) also undertook the commissioning of large editions for sale to factories, youth clubs and restaurants; the prints produced included Wadsworth’s Signals (Cat. No. 66) of 1942. This programme was expanded after 1945 when CEMA became the Arts Council of Great Britain and subsequently encouraged a greater proficiency in the administration of the arts.
The idea behind the Contemporary Lithographs initiative was repeated in the mid-1940s by Brenda Rawnsley and her venture, School Prints Ltd. Advised by Herbert Read, she commissioned artists including Michael Rothenstein, Julian Trevelyan and Edwin La Dell to work directly on the lithographic stones, producing a first series of 24 prints at the Baynard Press. Encouraged by the success of the first two sets, in 1948 she borrowed from the bank, chartered a plane and headed to Paris with the aim of securing the services of some of the leading European avant-garde. Having convinced Braque, Picasso, Leger, Matisse and Dufy in France and Henry Moore in London (Cat. No. 64) to participate the set was published in 1949 in an edition of 3,000 costing £4. Unfortunately, it was an expensive and loss-making venture and many prints remained in the School Print premises when they were sold in the 1970s.
The end of the war saw stylistic changes absorbed by artists as the move towards abstraction was viewed as a revival of International Modernism, which had fallen out of favour while Romanticism was preferred. Artists such as Pasmore, Martin, Heath, Hilton, Adams and Scott all worked in an abstract manner, striving to produce work that was free of all descriptive or allusive content. The group exhibited together on numerous occasions, most notably at Adrian Heath’s Fitzroy Street studio, where the chosen medium for prints was either lithography or the linocut, popular for its low cost and its suitability to the Constructivist aesthetic.
The revival of lithography continued after the war into the 1950s helped by the development of the process in London. While excellent printers did exist in Britain, they mainly worked as technicians in the printmaking departments of the art schools, as in the case of the Devenish brothers; Ernest and George. Originally both employed at the Central School, George left in the late 1940s to work with Edwin LaDell in the establishment of a lithography department at the Royal College of Art. LaDell, who had travelled extensively to Paris, saw the level of professionalism that was achieved there through the atelier system and aimed to remedy the imbalance between the two countries.
Despite the technical advances made by the Devenish brothers, the printing process remained for many a very amateur affair. Philip Jones of the Arts Council wrote in the introduction to the second Exhibition of the Society of London Painter Printers (Redfern, 1949) of the difficulties artists faced; ‘the artist retires to the skulley (sic.) with the clothes mangle, and not without a somewhat naïve disregard for technical tricks and proficiency and not without a little adventitious aid from finger tips or any other instrument at hand, rolls off a series of prints with a good deal of hit or miss’. It was only due to the hard work and perseverance of a small group of people that British contemporary printmaking shrugged off its recreational mantle. Some credit for this transformation must go to the two sisters who together set up the Millers Press in Lewes, East Sussex in 1945. Frances Byng Stamper and Caroline Lucas moved to the townhouse at the outbreak of war and in 1941 opened a gallery in the garden stables. The first exhibition, reviewed by Clive Bell, included, ‘A good little collection of modern paintings, French and English - Bonnard, Roualt, Matisse, Vlaminck, Derain, Gris, Sickert, Duncan Grant, Mathew Smith, John, Pissaro, a minute Renoir and a watercolour by Cezanne’. More importantly was the establishment of the press in 1945. The first portfolio of eight hand-pulled lithographs in an edition of 250 was exhibited at the gallery in a show sponsored by CEMA. The artists involved included Vanessa Bell (Cat. No. 83), Duncan Grant and du Plessis and sets were purchased by the V&A Museum and Manchester City Art Gallery, among others.
The sisters continued their interest in prints with the establishment in 1948 of the Society of London Painter-Printers in conjunction with the Redfern Gallery. The first exhibition held in December that year catalogued prints by Piper, Pasmore, Clough, Richards, Scott and Minton, to name a few. The majority of the work was carried out in the artists’ studios where they worked on transfer paper, which in turn was relayed on to the printing stone. Although the initial portfolio of eight had probably been printed in Lewes, the majority of the work was carried out elsewhere, either by the Chiswick Press or in Paris. This dependence on foreign printing houses continued into the fifties and the situation was only rectified by Robert Erskine’s pioneering work at the St. George’s Gallery, Cork Street. His decision to open a gallery in 1955 that not only dealt in prints but also published them was revolutionary to British art and saw for the first time standards applied to the quality of prints produced. He made multiple visits to the Atelier Lacouriere in Paris and saw the professionalism of the work carried out there, a characteristic sadly lacking in British prints at the time. He complained that the lithographs of the time were, ‘crooked on their paper, punched through with ugly registration slots, and seldom matching the colours of the accepted proof’, and set about to rectify the situation. Artists were commissioned to produce prints in any medium and in a limited edition. If the artists lacked printing skills the gallery paid for the services of an expert printer and the costs were recovered by the sale of prints from the edition. Meticulous care was given to the presentation of the print; the finest quality paper was used, accurate registration of colours was attained and prints were sold with clean edges and proper margins. Quality control was introduced to the British print.
Erskine looked backwards as well as to the future, re-igniting the interest that had existed before and during the war for suites of prints held together with a common theme and presented in a portfolio. He, with the help of the British Council, organised travelling exhibitions that toured to Europe and the United States. The home market was not neglected; new prints were introduced on a monthly basis and the year culminated in the annual ‘Contemporary British Printmakers’ exhibition, showing the forty best prints of the previous 12 months. Gradually the reliance on foreign print houses was lessened as Erskine encouraged more talented British printers. Most notable among these was Stanley Jones of the Curwen Press. A specialist in stone and plate lithography, Jones worked for two years at the Atelier Patris in Paris before being visited by Erskine in 1958 who discussed the possibility of opening a British printing house along the lines of the French model. The small pilot scheme that was initiated in St. Ives printed the work of luminaries such as Terry Frost, Ben Nicholson and Roger Hilton before the Curwen Studio was opened in Plaistow with Jones as manager.
Just as the lean war years had an adverse effect on British printmaking, the general prosperity that heralded the start of the 1960s filtered through to the art world. The breaking down of class barriers created a more egalitarian social structure leading to an expanded and more moneyed middle class. London was seen as the cultural capital of the world and prints represented an affordable way to ‘buy into’ this new phenomenon. Publishers seized their opportunity and the period was characterised by the opening of new studios dedicated to printmaking. Editions Alecto, established by Joe Studholme and Robert Erskine, followed the lead of St. George’s Gallery and also set up the Print Centre, an exhibition space in Church Street, Kensington. As the principal London venue for British and foreign prints it attracted artists such as Allen Jones, Howard Hodgkin and Alan Davie. While Alecto covered the whole gamut of printmaking techniques, Kelpra Studios, begun by Chris Prater, specialised in screen printing. A relatively new technique that had only recently gained acceptance as an art form thanks mainly to American developments, the studio worked with many of the leading artists of the day, including Peter Blake, David Hockney and Eduardo Paolozzi. In 1967 Chris Betambeau, who had worked at Kelpra, established Advanced Graphics, working either directly with artists or for artists commissioned by galleries and publishers. Over the years the company has expanded from its printing roots, developing the publishing side of the business alongside exhibiting both in the London gallery and in fairs worldwide. Other London galleries also followed the St. George’s precedent, Marlborough and Waddington Graphics both being instrumental in the publication of prints by the most exciting artists of the period.
We hope that this exhibition will give you an insight into the diversity and richness of printmaking in Britain in the twentieth century and we look forward to seeing you either at the London Original Print Fair or welcoming you to the gallery.
Nicola Penny, 2003
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