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.
£375
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.
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. Excellent condition, unframed.
Collections: Tate Gallery, Government Art Collection; British Council; Blanton Museum of Art, Texas
£375
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.’
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.
Reference: 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, framed.
Provenance: Austin Desmond and Phipps. Reference: The Prints of Michael Rothenstein (Sidey 37)
£1,950
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.
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.
Collections: Fry Art Gallery; Cuming Collection. Ref. Sidey 114 (illustrated pl xi).
£2,400
This is the largest and most successful of Rothenstein’s four images of a turkey perched on the saddle of an old sulky plow in the farmyard backing on to the artist’s home at Ethel House in Great Bardfield. Rothenstein himself notes in his print journal that this linocut is a ‘fine example of whipping-back during printing’.
Brouillard 1981-2003
Screenprint in 6 colours on wove paper. 785 × 720mm (image size), 1000 × 900mm (sheet size). Signed, dated and numbered in pencil from the edition of 85. Printed by Artizan Editions, Hove. Excellent condition, framed to conservation standards in a plain white frame.
Reference: Bridget Riley The Complete Prints 1962-2020 (BRS 54)
£26,500
Brouillard translates from the French as mist and relates to a series of paintings Riley made in 1981, in which she arranged the same bands of colour in different ways to show how a variation in intensity could be achieved through the relationships between the colours. In The Edge of Light (BRS 55), Brouillard’s sister screenprint, the overall effect appears much sharper, while Brouillard, as the name suggests, appears softer.
Cornish Harbour, Mousehole 1951
Lithograph on wove paper 328 × 407mm (image size), 449 × 569mm (sheet size). Signed in pencil and numbered one from the edition of 60. Printed at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham and 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 with UV protection glass.
Literature: Avante-Garde British Printmaking (British Museum p.193). Reference: Archeus 5. Collections: Arts Council, Government Art Collection; Museum of New Zealand. Provenance: with The Fine Art Society, exhibited 1992 (label verso)
£8,500
This is my (and most others) favourite William Scott print. Important, from a key date and hard to find, especially in such fabulous condition; it is also an excellent example of how, sometimes, the realisation of an image through printmaking surpasses its painted cousins. 1951 was a pivotal year for Scott: he gained renown through his first solo exhibition at London’s famous Leicester Galleries and was invited to participate in the Festival of Britain. Stylistically, too, 1951 saw a shift from defined figurative compositions towards looser abstraction.
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. Provenance: Curwen Gallery Archive
£345
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.
Provenance: Grosvenor Gallery
£575
Printed at the Grosvenor School of Art, London 1929, it is unlikely the edition was ever completed. Sherwood exhibited an example of this linocut at the Redfern Gallery in 1934 (cat.78) and, the following year, a linocut titled Snakes Heads at the National Gallery of Canada’s Modern Colour Prints exhibition. Exceptionally rare, this is a little gem of a Vorticist-inspired image. My thanks to Stephen Coppel for his help with my research.
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. Good original condition, some slight toning to the sheet, framed in its original 1970s aluminium frame.
£175
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.
Oberon and Titania 1964
Lithograph on handmade Barcham Green paper. 485 × 705mm (image size). Signed, dated and numbered in pencil from the edition of 25. Printed and published by the Curwen Studio, London 1964. Very good condition, framed to conservation standards in a charcoal grey wood frame.
Collection: Tate Gallery. Provenance: Curwen Archive
£475
Rowell was born in Australia, but spent much of his time in England working as a set and costume designer for many theatre, opera and ballet companies including: Ballet Rambert, Saddlers Wells and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
