Spring Prints and Multiples

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

David Shrigley I'm Sorry I Can't Promise It Won't Happen Again, 2021 8 colour screenprint with a varnish overlay on Somerset Satin Tub sized 410 gsm 75 x 56 cm Edition of 125 + 4 APs...

"The Scar by China Miéville is a novel which has been a part of my life for many years, and has travelled as my companion through since adolescence. I've attempted to depict the Avan...

Screen print on Saunders Waterford 300gsm paper Hand-signed, dated, and numbered by the artist 45 x 62 cm Edition 78 of 300 The print was editioned by master printer, Kip Gresham at The Print Studio, Cambridge for Kettle's Yard. It was made using an original drawing ‘cut’ into an acrylic sheet. The image is then reversed when printed. Description from the publisher: "Drawing has been fundamental to Ai Weiwei’s artistic practice from an early age. He also has a longstanding love of cats, and they appear frequently in the artist’s social media posts. Many cats used to roam his studio in Beijing. As part of the Kettle’s Yard exhibition, Ai’s ‘Cats wallpaper...

Whimsical and vivacious limited editions screen-print on paper depicting a smiling nude figure lounging on a beach next to a fantastical orange and purple striped iguana, with volcanos erupting in the distance and several airplanes flying through the night sky by Phoebe Cole...

Michael Knigin, American (1942 - 2011) - Bad Guy, Year: 2006, Medium: Giclee print on paper signed, numbered and dated in pencil, Edition: AP, Image Size: 23.5 x 17.5 inches, Siz...

Salvador Dali - Cherries - Original Hand-Signed Lithograph Dimensions: P. 57 x 37 cm Sheet: 75 x 56 cm Handsigned Edition: EC.d (collaborator edition "d") Excellent Condition Refer...

Lithograph, silkscreen in colors on vélin vergata paper. Paper size: 16.5 x 12.625 inches. Inscription: Signed in the plate and unnumbered, as issued. Catalogue Raisonne Reference: M...

Giclée print on archival Canson Mi-Teinte paper 18.90 x 12.99 in (48.0 x 33.0 cm) From a limited edition of 250. 139/250 Published by Braddock Tiles, Pennsylvania This work is numb...

Artist: Jean Michel Folon, Belgian (1934 - 2005) Title: Editions Lahumiere Year: Circa 1980 Medium: Screenprint on Arches Paper Paper Size: 29.5 in. x 39.5 in. (74.93 cm x 100.33 cm)

The sublime, or the amalgamation of the terrifying and the awe-inspiring, is encapsulated by the crashing wave that dominates this surrealist landscape. Artist: Clarence Holbrook Ca...

Born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1953, Frederick Phillips studied Fine Art at Burslem College of Art when Arthur Berry was Head of the Fine Art (Painting) ...