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.
£140
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
£250
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
£500
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, 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
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
Cornish Harbour, Mousehole 1951
Lithograph on wove paper 328 × 407 (image), 449 × 569 (sheet). Signed and numbered in pencil from the edition of 60. Published by the Artist’s International Association for the Festival of Britain Exhibition in 1951. Excellent condition, framed to museum standards in a hidden-mitre, distressed gunmetal-effect wood frame. This is my and most others favourite William Scott print. Important, hard to come by and rare to find in such fabulous condition – no fading, the colours are as fresh as they were 75 years ago. The image is a perfect example of Scott’s evolution from Neo-Romantic to abstract, kick-started by his association with the St Ives artists during that seminal post-war period in Modern British art. I absolutely love it! Reference: Archeus 5. Collections: Arts Council, Government Art Collection; Museum of New Zealand. Provenance: with The Fine Art Society, exhibited 1992
£7,500
Two Lovers 1966
Lithograph on handmade Barcham Green paper 395 x 595mm. Signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 100. Published and printed by Curwen Prints, London 1966. Excellent condition, unframed. Collection: Tate Gallery
£250
The Crab 1929
Linocut on thin, cream wove paper, 125 × 155mm (image), 218 × 177mm (sheet). Signed, dated, titled and numbered in pencil from the edition of 50 (unlikely to have been completed). Printed at Grosvenor School of Art, London 1929. Good condition, framed to conservation standards in a hand-painted brown beveled sustainable wood frame. Extremely rare. Charming, vorticist-inspired image from one of the lesser known Grosvenor School linocutters working alongside Claude Flight, Cyril Power, Ethel Spowers and Sybil Andrews, who encouraged Sherwood to exhibit a linocut titled Snakes Heads at the National Gallery of Canada’s Exhibition of Modern Colour Prints, organised by the Redfern Gallery in 1935 (cat.78).
£475
Moruroa 1973
Embossed etching from five plates on T H Saunders hot-pressed paper printed to edges 588 × 535mm, signed, titled and numbered in pencil from the edition of 150. Printed by the artist at the influential Print Workshop (set up by Skiold herself on Charlotte Street in 1957); published by Editions Alecto, London and used as the front cover of their Alecto Monographs series no.9 Birgit Skiold. A copy of the monograph accompanies the sale of this work. Very good original condition, framed in its original 1970s aluminium frame. The image, like much of Skiold’s work, was inspired by her life-long love of Oriental art and specifically her pilgrimage to Japan in 1970 where she became fascinated by the Zen Gardens. The subtle colouring and mixed aquatint techniques has made this beautifully serene image very difficult to photograph accurately. Really you need to see it in the flesh.
£185