WHY PRINTMAKING IS IMPORTANT

My own creative life has been tied up with print and printmaking and I am a passionate advocate of the value and beauty of this means of expression. Looking through the prints from the Newport Museum`s collection I was strongly aware of the important part the acquisition of prints has played in bringing a representative range of contemporary artists to a broader public. There was it seems a golden age when throughout the British Isles Institutions invested in the work of a whole range of artists by buying etchings, lithographs, silk screen and relief prints. This wealth of wonderful work can be easily overlooked as somehow secondary to other art. Works on paper are easy to store and their modest demands have sometimes led to their neglect in the history of the art of our time. But I believe that now is a moment to look back at the diversity and beauty of printmaking, and to look forward to the future. The emerging digital mediums that artists can utilise, offer extraordinary creative possibilities. The older methods of making prints are likely to survive, often re-invigorated through dialogue with the new, but we have to be careful to give attention to past achievements. Printing depends on continuity. Almost all the artists in this collection also make or made work in other ways than print, for a few it becomes the primary medium. It is also clear that although many of these prints refer to a world that has substantially changed, the essential concerns are the same for the artists of today.

Artists, have since it`s invention, had a fascination with printing. It is in the nineteenth century that the notion of an artist printmaker developed, but before that there were many such as Durer, Rembrandt, Hogarth and others, who took the medium and thrashed out of it a forceful and meaningful voice. Goya`s “Disasters of War” stands as one of the greatest achievements in printmaking because it was morally outspoken and poignantly beautiful. The liberation from the everyday task of jobbing reproduction was the touch-paper that set off artists exploring the expressive potential of the graphic mediums. Munch in his painterly procrastination used the tenuous qualities of stone lithography to find a way of describing his deepest feelings. Lautrec employed the flatness of colour to give a decorative and evocative effect. With photography doing the dirty work, the coast was clear. The myriad possibilities including the concentrated effects of drawing , the richness of tonality and the colour range in print, added to the multiple democratic potential, led artists to the Printmaking Workshop. Here was something serious to play with.

The 20th century was an age where printmaking took an important place in many artists output. Picasso exemplifies a draughtsman and painter who took on supremely successfully, printmaking. His capacity to utilise the range of the incisive etched line, the rich colour of the linocut or the soft wonder of lithography, has no equal. Much of what Picasso achieved was through collaboration with publishers and master printers. The relationship between artist and collaborators is distinctive. There must be equality and respect. The art of printmaking is always a joint effort to a lesser or greater extent. It has a social dimension. Rauchenberg declared that the co-operative element in the making of prints was a great relief from the loneliness of the painter`s studio. Famously, American print workshops such as Gemini run by Ken Tyler became involved in fabulously ambitious productions that pushed the technical boundaries with painters and sculptors who challenge the accepted print making wisdom using the know-how of specialists. The appliance of science plus the application of craft has made the print workshop a powerful resource.

There have been 2 practical routes for the sustenance of the artist printmaker in the 20th century; the Commercial Print Workshop and the Art School. Particularly in Scotland, there has been a policy in post war Britain to establish public print workshops. Glasgow was the first and it is still going strong and about to move into new premises. Many others followed with public support. The Curwen Press has a long history of working with artists and enabling the creation of original printmaking, but the greatest repositories of the skills and traditions associated with printmaking, have been the Art Schools. They have been the keeper`s of the flame. The importance of art students learning skills in printmaking has been long recognised. The value of the medium was such that until very recently no Art School would be without it`s Print Workshop.

All this seems to have changed by the arrival of the new digital methods and mediums. There is a deafening noise of babies being thrown out with bathwater. Print Departments are closed in the name of modernisation and cost saving. Paradoxically, the world is in the throes of a new print revolution. The Golden Age of Information Technology is print based. Suddenly, every home and office is a print studio. So many of the issues that have long been the preserve of the artist printmaker are questions that everybody is now involved in. The new vocabulary of “downloading”, “editing” and “printing” could equally be used in the traditional workshop. Far from being out of date, the experience of the 500 years of printing history is vitally important to the development of our new mediums. A work, produced by an artist who had begun to unravel and use the nature of the printing, whether it is the latest digital or the most traditional of processes, can convey the deepest and subtlest of meanings. That is why Printmaking is important. That is why looking at a collection of prints like this is valuable.

Chris Orr May 2009

This page features examples from the In Response catalogue showing the collection choises of the V-6 artists and their response to their chosen prints. There is also an important essay by Professor Chris Orr RCA who along with Frank Tinsley were guest speakers at the In Response symposium held during the exhibition.