Ladder Series I 1972

Etching on T H Saunders wove paper. 395 ×395mm (image), 600 × 590mm (sheet). Signed and dated in pencil, inscribed printer’s proof aside from the edition of 30. Printed at Studio Prints and published by Waddington Graphics, London. Very good condition, framed to museum standards in a hand-painted brown wood frame. The first of Lim’s ladder series of five etchings, directly reflecting her wooden sculptures of the same date, this etching is generally agreed to be among her best work as a printmaker. Provenance: Frances St Clair Miller (studio assistant). Collections Tate Gallery; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Minneapolis Institute of Art; University of Albany Art Collection

£1,675

Blue Engraving 1972

Engraving on T H Saunders wove paper. 440 × 440mm (image), 610 × 585mm (sheet). Signed and dated in pencil, inscribed ‘trial proof’ aside from the edition of 35. Studio Prints in Kentish Town and published by Waddington Graphics, London. Excellent condition, framed to conservation standards. This example is a little bluer than the Tate’s example and shows how important it was for Lim to create balance from line, curve, colour and rhythm. Collections: Tate Gallery; British Council; Minneapolis Institute of Art. Provenance: Francis St Clair Miller (studio assistant)

RESERVED

Life, A Personal Journey 1981

Lithograph on B F K Rives wove paper printed to edges, 877 x 598mm. Signed, dated and numbered in pencil from the small edition of 12. Printed at the Curwen Studio, Cambridge 1981. Excellent condition, unframed. Also titled Autoportrait. A rare print by this contemporary artist, whose early work is represented in the Saatchi collection. McGinn was still a student at the Royal College of Art when he made this lithograph. It’s a worrying, but at the same time hopeful image, if you look closely.

£275

A Grammar of Ornament 1976

Screenprint on Somerset textured paper, 1010 x 710mm (sheet), 812 x 534mm (image). Signed and numbered in pencil from the edition of 50, printed at Advanced Graphics and published by Waddington Galleries, London 1976 as number four in the artist’s A walk to the Studio series. The Tom Phillips estate website tells us: ‘The fourth of the prints is a tribute to a great Welshman, Owen Jones, whose monumental tome The Grammar of Ornament is (for those with strength enough to lift it down from the shelf) a treasure house of design and motif as well as a masterpiece of book production. Borrowing his format I have made an assemblage of the various pieces of ornamental paper that littered these streets in 1976 and have tried to treat them with the care that would have been their automatic right were they the sweet-wrappers of Babylon or the fancy paper-bags of Troy. These various unconsidered trifles are presented in their natural sizes and surrounded by a decorative border which is the much enlarged back of a humdrum playing card: although one of the cheapest kinds of plasticated card, the deliberate intricacy is still delicate and well-drawn on this scale.’ Excellent condition, unframed. Collections: Tate Gallery, Government Art Collection; British Council; Blanton Museum of Art, Texas

£375

Llangloffan 1971

Offset lithographic reproduction on hot-pressed paper, 395 x 575mm (image), 810 x 592mm (sheet). Signed in pencil from the edition of 750, published by the Fine Art Trade Guild in association with the Cavendish Collection (with their blindstamps), London 1980. Excellent condition, unframed. Ref: Levinson p.118

£575

Journey 1950

Monotype on buff cartridge paper 395 × 564mm (image), 466 × 640mm (sheet). Signed in crayon. Printed by the artist from glass, Great Bardfield 1950. Very good original condition, unique, framed. The image depicts a woman sitting in a railway carriage wearing a large, flowery hat. It combines Rothenstein’s love of travel, in particular by rail, and the influences he drew from his many trips to Paris after the war. As a monotype, this piece is unique and, quite frankly, museum quality. Provenance: Austin Desmond and Phipps. Reference: The Prints of Michael Rothenstein (Sidey 37)

£2,200

Two Macaws 1985

Woodcut with hand-colouring on Somerset wove paper, 623 × 409mm (image), 755 × 564mm (sheet). Signed and numbered in pencil from the edition of 18. Printed by the artist and Ann Wesley at Argus Studio, Stisted. Excellent condition, framed to conservation standards. As Tessa Sidey notes in her excellent catalogue raisonné The Prints of Michael Rothenstein, ‘hand-colouring varies throughout the edition’. This example has a particularly airy feel and even the harsh, German Expressionist-inspired female figure (Rothenstein’s daughter, Anne on a trip to Colchester zoo) is smiling. Ref. Sidey 346

£640

Turkey and Farm Machine III 1959

Linocut on buff cartridge paper, 631 x 912mm (sheet), 563 x 865mm (image). Signed and numbered in pencil from the edition of 20 printed by the artist and Peter White, Great Bardfield 1959. Very good original condition, framed to conservation standards in a solid wood, rounded frame. This is the largest and most successful of Rothenstein’s four images of a turkey perched on the saddle of an old sulky plow. Rothenstein himself notes in his print journal that this linocut is a ‘fine example of whipping-back during printing’, the colour overlays are particularly exquisite: there is cobalt blue in the feathers of the turkey and this particular example has an extra inking in lilac – difficult to discern from the photograph, but well worth the trip to see it in real life. Important linocut. Collections: Fry Art Gallery; Cuming Collection. Ref. Sidey 114 (illustrated pl xi).

£2,200