London Original Print Week

Redfern Gallery
Private Collection, UK

Stephen Coppel, Linocuts of the Machine Age , published by Scolar Press, 1995, no. SA 24
Hana Leaper, Sybil Andrews Linocuts: A Complete Catalogue , published by Lund Humphries, no. 26

Printed from 3 blocks in venetian red, viridian & Chinese blue. Signed, titled & numbered TP1 (Trial Proof), aside from the edition of 60

Michael Parkin FA, London 
Private Collection, UK
Sally Hunter FA, UK
Osborne Samuel, London

Coppel, Stephen. Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School. (Scolar Press, Aldershot: 1995). no. SA 13

Leaper, Hana. Sybil Andrews Linocuts: A Complete Catalogue. (Lund Humphries, Surrey: 2015). no. 15.

Printed from 3 blocks in Chinese orange, spectrum red and Prussian blue

Coppel, Stephen. Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School. (Scolar Press, Aldershot: 1995). no. SA 52.

Leaper, Hana. Sybil Andrews Linocuts: A Complete Catalogue. (Lund Humphries, Surrey: 2015). no. 61.

Printed from 4 blocks in spectrum red, viridian, permanent blue and ivory black.

Family of the Artist

Family of the artist

Invitation to the artist’s 80th birthday

Family of the artist

The Artist

Osborne Samuel

Kerr Eby, The Complete Prints, Ed. Bernadette Passi Giardinia, published by M.Hausberg, 1997, no.182

Based on the successful counteroffensive by the Americans against the Germans during the St.Mihiel offensive in September 1918. In describing the event, the Print Collector’s Quarterly of 1939 noted, ‘in the Saint-Mihiel Drive, the great cloud hung for days over the advancing troops, the Germans called it the Cloud of Blood’

Stephen Coppel, Linocuts of the Machine Age , published by Scolar Press, 1995, no. CF A3

From the advertised edition of 500 impressions issued with The Original Colour Print Magazine edited by William Giles. The scarcity of this print would suggest that the edition was never fulfilled.

The Artist
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Private Collection

Starr Figura 61; Sebastian Smee 44; 

Toby Treves, Lucian Freud: Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints, published by Modern Art Press, 2022, no. 96, illustrated p.239

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Lucian Freud: The Painter’s Etchings , 16 Dec 2007 – 10 Mar 2008 (another impression exhibited and illustrated p.92)

The journalist Emily Bearn was the subject of this etching, she was also the sitter to several paintings in 2001-2002.

Private Collection, USA

Scottish Arts Council 127
David Hockney: Prints 1954-1995, published by the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 1996, no.  119, p.91

Total edition includes 15 proofs and 60 in Roman numerals. Printed on Crisbrook handmade paper. Proofed by Maurice Payne in London and printed from a chrome faced plate by Shirley Clement at the Print Shop, Amsterdam.

This still-life of a coat hanging off the back of a bentwood chair, with a panama hat, pipe and empty glass on the seat, depicts the personal effects of Hockney’s great friend and early champion, Henry Geldzahler (1935-1994), then curator of Twentieth Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum. Geldzahler was a regular sitter for Hockney.

Private Collection, UK

Printed from 4 blocks in permanent blue, viridian green, ochre & pale chrome

One of the most notable achievements of the linocut artists is the way they choreographed the pleasurable, life affirming and healthful activities of the public’s often increasingly available leisure time. In the 1930’s, despite England’s post war political and financial uncertainties, the pursuit of leisure became a widespread social phenomenon. The Grosvenor School artists chose subject matters such as dancing, rowing on the river, swimming, bathing, gymnastic exercises, playing musical instruments, attending concerts, eating with friends and family, playing boules, sitting at a café, skating, skiing, playing rugby, football and ice hockey – whilst invariably retaining a cutting edge.

 Lawrence’s 1929 linocut The Cricket Match, has an enchantingly naïve fluidity, playfully manipulating hard-edged geometric forms. The simple use of perspective on the cricket pitch, the angular lines of the figures and the field, all adeptly conjures up an impression of the game’s speedy agility and quick changes of fortune, the cricketing whites themselves evoked through lucid areas of blank, unprinted paper.

Henry Moore: Catalogue of Graphic Work Volume III 1976-1979, published by Gerald Cramer, CGM/422

Greenwood, Jeremy. The Wood-Engravings of Paul Nash. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Wood Lea Press, 1997. cat no. G103.

Paul Nash first visited the Kent village of Dymchurch in 1919. “A delightful place with much inspiring material for work” he subsequently moved his family there in 1921. The lofty broad seawall protects the low lying and ancient area of Romney Marsh from flooding. Running for six kilometres, nine metres high and six metres wide the monumental wall was originally constructed in Roman times with the great Martello towers added in the Napoleonic era after the threat of invasion. Three sluices gates in the wall allowed the water on the wetland to run out at low tide. Nash, who nearly drowned as a child, wrote of his fear and fascination with the sea; ‘cold and cruel waters, usually in a threatening mood, pounding and rattling along the shore’. This feeling of dread can be sensed in his works of Dymchurch with a strange low evening light casting long shadows.

Postan, Alexander. The Complete Graphic Work of Paul Nash. London: Secker & Warburg, 1973. cat no. W5.
Greenwood, Jeremy. The Wood-Engravings of Paul Nash. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Wood Lea Press, 1997. cat no. G5.

Private Collection, UK
Osborne Samuel, London

Black, Jonathan. CRW Nevinson – The Complete Prints. London: Lund Humphries in association with Osborne Samuel, 2014. cat. no 9.

During his time both as an ambulance driver and with the Red Cross, Nevinson was captivated by the dense lines of marching French soldiers seemingly moving as one. Informed by the Futurist techniques for depicting movement, seen in such works a Boccioni’s ‘The City Rises’ and ‘States of Mind’, the French soldiers in ‘Returning to the Trenches’ merge into one unified mechanical mass, their limbs blurring together, giving one the impression of a speeding train disappearing into the distance. In his autobiography Nevinson stated that these soldiers may have been part of the French 89th territorial division, and in the oil painting of the same subject the early French uniform is distinctive with its impractical red cap. In an interview with The Daily Express in February 1915 where the painting was reproduced he stated:

“I have tried to express the emotion produced by the apparent ugliness and dullness of modern warfare. Our Futurist technique is the only possible medium to express the crudeness, violence, and brutality of the emotions seen and felt on the present battlefields of Europe … Modern art needs not beauty, or restraint, but vitality.”

Private Collection, UK
Osborne Samuel, London

Etching from five plates, printed on one sheet.

‘The starting point for this print was Thomas More’s Utopia. Utopia is a pun on the Greek ou topos meaning ‘no place’. ‘I was playing with the idea of there being no Heaven. People are very wedded to the idea of a neat ending: our rational brains would love to tidy up the mess of the world and to have either Armageddon or Heaven at the end of our existence.
But life doesn’t work like that – it’s a continuum.’ [1]

Prints are no secondary art form for Grayson Perry, they are considered, large-scale final pieces. A vocal advocate of therapy and analysis, in the Map of Nowhere Perry explores his own belief system; His opinions contend with those he finds crowding around him in wider society. The print’s grand proportions encompass the artist’s taste for niggling detail.
Perry started the drawing in the top left-hand corner, and worked towards the bottom right-hand corner, without planning the in-between; instead ideas were allowed to emerge, leading from one to another, through the drawing process.

As also seen in his subsequent major etchings, Map of an Englishman (2004) or his ‘playscape’, Print for a Politician (2005), Perry prefers to leave ink on the plate during the printing process; he avoids creating too crisp an image in order to evoke an antique look. Perry is yoking his map to its historical pedigree. With this etching, Perry is working from a big historical model rather than one from fine art: the medieval mappa mundi (map of the world) provides a recognisable template. As pre-Columbian diagrams, they would illustrate a sum of knowledge, acting as both instructive and decorative objects, making connections vivid and comprehensible. The Map of Nowhere is based on a famous German example, the Ebstorf Map, which was destroyed in the Second World War. It showed Jesus as the body of the world, with his head, hands
and feet marking four equidistant points around the circle.

Perry spikes the tradition with contemporary social comment. Within a circular scheme, like the Ebstorf Map, or the existent Hereford Mappa Mundi (www.herefordcathedral.org), he presents a flattened-out analysis of his world – from jibes about current affairs to the touchstones of his personal life. Where the Ebstorf Map has the world unfolding around Jerusalem, Perry’s personal world view encompasses a cacophony of ideas and preoccupations, with ‘Doubt’ right at the centre. The artist’s alter ego Claire gets a sainthood, while people pray at the churches of global corporations: Microsoft, Starbucks, Tescoes. Tabloid cliches abound, each attached to a figure or building: ‘the new black’, ‘kidults’, ‘binge drinking’, having-it-all’. Top right, the ‘free-market-economy’ floats untethered, preempting the credit crunch that was to take hold in the autumn of 2008. All-over labels demand that the map is read – or quizzed – close up. This is a clearly articulated satire, and while Perry adopts a medieval confusion of scale and proportion, the diagrammatic style is as adamant as its religious forerunners. Beneath, there is a drawing of figures on a pilgrimage, set in a realistic landscape. They are at final staging post before making their way up to a monastery at the top of a mountain beyond, which is hit by
a beam of light, coming from the artist’s bottom.

[1] Jackie Klein, Grayson Perry (Thames and Hudson, London 2009), p.162

The estate of Felice Ross, NYC
Osborne Samuel, London

Coppel, Stephen. Linocuts of the Machine Age: Claude Flight and the Grosvenor School. (Scolar Press, Aldershot: 1995). no. CEP 16.

Vann, Philip. Cyril Power Linocuts: A Complete Catalogue. (Lund Humphries, Surrey: 2013). no. 16.

Cutting Edge: Modern British Print Making , Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, June – September 2019

The Merry-Go-Round, like Power’s other great linocut ‘Appy ‘Ampstead is a real tour de force of Power’s vision and skill in producing intricately cut and inked lino-blocks to produce an image of such incredible kinetic energy.

The Merry-Go-Round is surprisingly printed from only two lino-blocks, in Chinese and chrome orange and Chinese blue in an edition of 50 impressions.  Like his linocut The Giant Racer, The Merry-Go-Round was observed by Power at the Wembley Exhibition Fun Fair in west London, not far from his home in Brook Green in Hammersmith.

Power’s linocut is a stark contrast to Mark Gertler’s wonderful 1916 painting also titled Merry-Go-Round which is in the Tate Collection. In Gertler’s famous painting the figures are geometrical in shape, giving them the appearance of dolls, painted in blue, red and yellow. It is almost sedentary compared to Power’s whirling Merry-Go-Round that seems almost out of control as the riders spin around at breakneck speed, the central column appears to be bending under the momentum, the blue and orange patterning above the canopy of the merry-go-round creates a vortex of energy, the silhouetted black cut-out figures in the foreground look almost out of focus conveying the speed of the merry-go-round as the riders hold on for dear life!

Linocuts of the Machine Age , Stephen Coppel, published by Scolar Press, 1995, CEP 39, p.101
Cyril Power Linocuts: A Complete Catalogue , by Philip Vann, published by Osborne Samuel & Lund Humphries, 2008, illustrated in colour p, 97

The Sunshine Roof is the famous composition by Power which features  the interior of a Green Line Bus. Green Line had its origin in the network of bus services established by the London General Omnibus Company in the 1920s and 1930s. After World War II, the network became part of London Transport,  and from 1970 to 1986 was operated by London Country Bus Services. In 2020 the company celebrated its 90^th Anniversary.

The perspective of the composition is from the rear of the bus where the artist sat, the ‘sunshine roof’ above is open on a summer’s day. The passengers are fashionably hatted.  Some stare out of the windows, others glance to the left.  On either side and above, Power uses the curves and patterns to accentuate speed as the bus tilts to the right and hurtles along.

The driver is the artist’s son, also named Cyril Power.  He had gone to Australia to seek work and returned home during the depression of the 1930s.  The only work he found was firstly as a bus conductor, then he was promoted to driver.

GS

Stanley Jones, the Master Lithographer from Curwen who printed this lithograph for Scott

Private Collection, Australia

Osborne Samuel Gallery

Linocuts of the Machine Age , Stephen Coppel, published by Scolar Press, 1995, ES 13, p.170

Printed from 3 blocks in emerald green, cobalt blue & mauve.

This very rare print by Spowers shows the plough going from right to left. There is a later edition of 50 of the same subject reversed titled ‘Birds Following a Plough’ also in an edition of 50 in 1933 (see Coppel ES 26). There is also a woodcut of the same subject made in 1929.

The Redfern Gallery, London

Private Collection, UK

Linocuts of the Machine Age , Stephen Coppel, published by Scolar Press, 1995, ES 14, p.170-171

Cutting Edge: Modern British Print Making , Dulwich Picture Gallery, Philip Wilsons Publishers, , 2019, p.53

Printed from four blocks in grey, reddish brown, emerald green & Cobalt blue.

Linocuts of the Machine Age , Stephen Coppel, published by Scolar Press, 1995, LT50, p.141
Cutting Edge: Modern British Print Making , Dulwich Picture Gallery, Philip Wilsons Publishers, , 2019, p.63

Printed from 2 blocks in black and red on thin cream oriental laid paper.

Linocuts of the Machine Age, Stephen Coppel, published by Scolar Press, 1995, LT24

Cutting Edge: Modern British Print Making , Dulwich Picture Gallery, Philip Wilsons Publishers, , 2019, p.87

Printed from 3 blocks in dark blue, light brown & light blue.

Lill Tschudi was a Swiss artist (1911-2004) from the town of Schwanden in the municipality of Glarus. She saw an advertisement in The Studio magazine for classes at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London and enrolled there in December 1929.  She stayed for six months, learning a revolutionary new method of linocutting taught by the charismatic Claude Flight, a teacher and artist who ran a course on Tuesday afternoons. Tschudi became a good friend of Flight’s and his companion the artist Edith Lawrence. Her linocuts like many of her fellow students who attended Flight’s classes are concerned with rhythm, velocity and dynamism of modern life of the Jazz Age.

Sailor’s Holiday shows a group of sailors printed in blues, black and brown, the white being part of the blocks that are left uncut and un-inked. It is not known where the scene is but after her time in London Flight suggested she go to Paris to broaden her work.  She spent two months there each year and studied under Fernand Leger, Andre Lhote and Gino Severini. The image suggest Paris as the location; the central figure looks like an accordion player perhaps.  The linocut was made in an edition of 50 in the 1930s but a second edition was begun in 1984 for the US market on the strength of the revival of interest in the Grosvenor School linocuts.  This second edition is annotated ‘USA’ and numbered from 50 as well.

Redfern Gallery / Jan-Feb 1986, British Prints:The Post-War Years 1945-1960, with essay by Gordon Samuel,Cat No 110 in b/w

Redfern Gallery, 1949, Les Peintres-Graveurs Exposition du 1 Decembre au 31 Decembre 1949: English Lithographs & Monotypes in colour with a foreward by Philip James. Cat No. 206 catalogued as ‘Landscape’

Vaughan made eight lithographs; almost all are signed but none are numbered, and the editions are unknown. Added to this, there is no evidence as to who the printers were.

During the immediate post-war years, printmaking facilities in London and the UK in general did not exist in the way we know today. Paris led the way for fine art printing from the late 19 th century and printers like Atelier Mourlot began as commercial workshops printing labels and posters in the mid-19 th century.

During the latter half of the 1940s London did not as yet enjoy the traditional expertise of the Paris ateliers. Excellent printers did exist in Britain but mainly as technicians in the printmaking departments of the art schools. Two such men were the Devenish brothers, George and Ernest. George was drafted into the Royal College of Art printmaking department by Edwin La Dell, who became Head of Department in 1948. Emest was the ‘master printer’ at the Central School.

In the post war years colour lithography began to emerge again. Millers Press in Lewes was begun by Frances Byng Stamper and her artist sister Caroline Lucas. In 1948 the Millers Press and Rex Nan Kivell’ s Redfern Gallery began a joint venture called The Society of London Painter Printers modelled along the late 19 th century Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers whose members worked in all forms of creative forward-thinking original printmaking. In Lewes they only had a proofing press, so the printing was outsourced to various printers. Documentary evidence shows that a large amount of work was commissioned by Millers but unfortunately, no mention is made of printers apart from Ravel in Paris and the Chiswick Press. Keith Vaughan for example, was commissioned by Millers to make Figure with Boat. During the late 1940s Vaughan was teaching at the Central School. It is possible that Winter Landscape lithograph was printed for Vaughan by Emest Devenish at the Central, although there is no documentary evidence to support this.