The Australian paintera and printmaker David Rose died on 12 December 2006. As a printmaker he came to promoinence in the 1960s with his large screenprints, particurly those with expansive views of sea and sky. He also produced lithographs. David was a generous supporter of the Australian National Gallery and helped build its almost complete collection of his graphic work.  

Printmaker Uno Sellbach died on 26 September 2006. Born in Cologne, he arrived in Australia in 1955. He taught printmaking at St Peters College, and the South Australian School of Art, Adelaide until moving to RMIT, Melbourne in 1965. He was the inaugural Director of the Canberra School of Art (now ANU School of Art) laying the foundation for its emphasis on studio practice. He was instrumental in the founding of the Print Council of Australia and the acceptance of printmaking as a subject for study within tertiary institutions (he spoke on these subjects at the Australian Print Symposium. The National Gallery of Australia holds a major collection of 650 of his prints, gifted by the artist in 1993.

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Entry forms are now available for the 2007 Burnie Print Prize. There is a $7000 Aquisitive Award (supported by Friends of the Burnie Regional Gallery and the Burnie City Council), and a $4,000 aquisition fund.

The judges for 2007 will be:
Kirsty Grant, Curator - Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Victoria.
Craig Judd, Senior Curator of Art and Decorative Arts Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Milan Milojevic, Head of Studio for Printmaking, Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania.

Recipt of artworks is due 31 January 2007, exhibition opening and announcement 21 March 2007. For details see Burnie Print Prize 2007

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Daniel Waswas writes from Papua New Guinea to announce the establishment of the website galleryPNG. The site represents Papua New Guinea artists and will promote 'its unique and diverse art and culture globally'. The not for profit art organization GalleryPNG was formed in 2003 'to cater for the needs of contemporary artists in Papua New Guinea'.

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Australia’s most prestigious award and exhibition for prints and artists’ books, in any print medium, celebrating the vitality of printmaking today.

Two contemporary and divergent approaches to storytelling were judged as this year’s winners of the Fremantle Print Award.

The Award attracted a near record of 338 entries, with every state and territory represented in the final exhibition of 63 works. This year's entries represent an extraordinary snapshot of what artists across Australia have been looking at, thinking about and trying out in printmaking.

Judged by Jenepher Duncan, Curator, Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia; Dennis Nona, artist; and Jasmin Stephens, Exhibitions Manager (Acting), Fremantle Arts Centre.

Winner $7000 Major Acquisitive Prize
Neil Emmerson, wood nymph triptych (the heart is a lonely hunter), 2006

Winner $3000 Non-Acquisitive Prize
Billie Missi

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Mirabel FitzGerald, who has been the backbone of printmedia at Sydney College oft he Arts, is retiring. Rebecca Breadmore notes " she is the sort of person one instantly warms to, possessing a disarming sort of character that puts even the most timid personalities at ease. Mirabel has an exceptional ability to find an intimate connection with all her students, to empathise and help drive their pursuits." [SCAfold, August 2006]

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Anne Kirker has decided to leave QAG and, as she has written, shall "spread my  wings and take on art consultancy work (including writing) as well as finish my Ph.D." Anne is well known to those interestered in printmaking. Her thesis was on the history of printmaking in New Zealand and she curated many shows both in New Zealand and Australia, including Being and Nothingness: Bea Maddock, (with Roger Butler) in 1992. Anne has written widely on printmaking in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. See bibliography.

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Applications for the Harold Wright, Sarah & Williams Holmes Scholarship for the study of prints at the British Museum close on the 31 August 2006. For more information ring the University of Melbourne, Prizes and Scholarship Office, (03) 8344 3303 or visit their website.

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The most delightful thing on earth: The art of Gladys Reynell Art Gallery of South Australia, 30 June – 24 September 2006

Gladys Reynell was a member of the famous South Australian family which established Reynella Winery, but it was her significant artistic contributions for which she is remembered. Reynell was South Australia’s first studio potter and was among the first to introduce Europe’s Modernist ethos into Australian craft. This exhibition, which will be the first retrospective of her work, will present her pottery, paintings, linocuts and sketches and is timed to mark the 50^th anniversary of her death. [AGSA blurb]

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There is a new website focusing on the work of the New Zealand printmaker James Boswell (1906-1971).  Boswell painter, printmaker and political satirist, was a leading radical left artist working in England. The site is the work of Boswell’s widow, Ruth, and is intended to commemorate 100 years since his birth, but also contains biographical details and a timeline, as well as showing many of Boswell’s works online for the first time. (info. courtesty Melinda Johnstone) 

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Melbourne printmaker and teacher Kenneth Jack, died on 26 June 2006, aged 82. His involvement with printmaking dates from the late 1940s at RMIT. It was in the ealy 1950s that he produced some of his most experimental works, engraving in wood and perspex and printing intaglio and relief.

In 1998 Beagle Press published Kenneth Jack: printmaker which contained a comprehensive list of his published work.

The National Gallery of Australia has 66 prints by Jack. 

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Imprint volume 41, no. 3, Winter 2006 celebrates 40 years since the establishment of the Print Council of Australia. This special 64 page edition has many reflections on the past (Diana Davis, Lillian Wood and Sue Forster and Stephen Rainbird), as well as reports on Close focus: 3^rd Australian Artist’s Book forum (Sue Forster), Pressing Issues: Central West Print Focus (Emma Smith) and a Voice in India (Dianne Fogwell). There are essays by Jonathan Holmes, Sasha Grishin and Jazmina Cininas and Yvonne Boag in conversation with Donna Brett about printmaking in Korea. Added to all this is the more than usual previews, reviews and news. Congratulations Imprint! Happy Birthday Print Council!

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Margaret Preston & Gladys Reynell - out of Adelaide.
Art Gallery of South Australia, 1 July 2006, 11 am - 4 pm.

The influence of women artists on the development of Australian art, in the early part of the 20^th century, is now well recognised. Margaret Preston and Gladys Reynell initially trained in Adelaide, before travelling overseas together in 1912 and having direct experiencing of European modernism. Both returned to Australia with Reynell establishing the first studio pottery in South Australia in 1919, and the indomitable Preston moving to Sydney where she never wavered from her determination to realise works with a unique Australian character. Preston's remarkable and public career has overshadowed Reynell's, yet the links between the artists are strong and between them they introduced many aspects of modernism to Australia. Speakers : Deborah Edwards (Curator), Robert Reason, Dr Catherine Speck, Humphrey McQueen and Roger Butler. [AGSA blurb]

For more information and bookings call Yvonne: 8207 7050

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The Art Gallery of South Australia is pleased to announce the recent appointment of MARIA ZAGALA as its new Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs. Ms Zagala is currently Assistant Curator of Prints & Drawings at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, a position she has held since 1998.

Ms Zagala has an impressive academic record, incorporating extensive periods of study in the USA and Europe. She has a Master of Arts from La Trobe University specializing in Old Master drawings, for which she spent nine months in Berlin studying the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings), with shorter periods of research at both the Uffizzi Gallery, Florence and the British Museum in London. Her first class Honours degree in Art History was completed in part at the University of California at Berkeley where she undertook an internship at the University Art Museum with the Curator of Twentieth Century Art.     

 

Her wide ranging experience at the National Gallery of Victoria included co-curating the exhibition Drawn, on the endurance of drawing traditions from the Renaissance until the present day, as well as the thematic exhibition Grotesque: the Diabolical and Fantastic in art. She has worked on exhibitions ranging from Rembrandt, Goya and William Blake; to modern and contemporary, British, American and Australian group displays.

 

The position of Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs was previously held by Jane Messenger, who is now the Gallery’s Associate Curator of European Art.

 

Maria Zagala will re-locate to Adelaide from Melbourne to commence her position on 29 June 2006, working under the Gallery’s Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs, Julie Robinson. [AGSA media release]

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Recent staff changes in the department Australian Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Australia.

Deborah Hill finished her year as the Gordon Darling Intern on the 19th May, but continues to work in the department as Exhibition Co-ordinator of the major exhibition The Printed Imagein Australia which is scheduled to oen in March 2007.

The Gordon Darling Intern for 2006 -2007 is Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax, Sarina was an Australian Prints volunteer last year and was then employed part-time as a Curatorial Assistant. The department has also recently employed Mary-Lou Nugent as Curatorial Assistant for the Australian Print Workshop Archive. Mary-Lou was previously employed in the Exhibitions department of the NGA and before that worked as a curator with Aboriginal communities in central Australia. Mary-Lou will continue the cataloguing and safe housing of the APW collection for the next fourteen months.

Anne McDonald was awarded the Harold Wright Scholarship at the British Museum for the second half of 2006. Jaklyn Babington will be acting in Anne’s role for the six months that she is overseas. Jaklyn has been the Assistant Curator in International Prints and Drawings at the NGA for the last three years.

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Robert Heather is leaving Artspace Mackay in June to take up a new position as the Exhibitions and Events Manager at the State Library of Victoria.

The Mackay City Council will soon be looking for a new Director of Artspace Mackay and a message will be sent to the artists books list when the position is advertised.

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There is only another 4 weeks to send in entries to the Silk Cut linocut print award. "Each artist must send a single high-resolution digital image (300 dpi)" by Friday 2 June 2006! For more information visit the Silk Cut web-site.

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Theo Scharf: Night in a city.

Art Gallery of New South Wales, 5 April – 14 May 2006

 

Melbourne-born Scharf emigrated in 1914, becoming an illustrator in Munich, and later, a war artist for Germany in World War II. In the early 1920s, he produced his best remembered work, Night in a city, a portfolio of twenty etchings. The series is a satirical account of the night-life of a typical European or American city, from early evening to dawn. In his depictions of characters flitting through shadowy streets, theatres, night clubs and restaurants, Scharf reveals - with a biting, sardonic wit - the dark underside of society. [AGNSW blurb]

This is the first AGNSW exhibition to have an online catalogue

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Entries are invited for the Southern Cross University Acquisitive artists' book award 2006. Artists' books to the value of 42000 will be acquired at the catalogue price for inclusion in the Southern Cross Artists' Book Collection.

The SCU Artists' BooK Collection is housed in the Manning Clarke Room SCU Library. The collection already includes artists' books by Lyndall Adams, Cornelius Delaney, Ishta Heidi, Bea Maddock, Ron McBurnie, Stanus Menshic, Debra Phillips, Jo Pursey and Jonathan Tse.

For entry forms nextart@scu.edu.au . Entries close on 30 June 2006. Works will be shown at the Next Art Gallery 18 July to 16 August 2006.

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Bookbinding Exhibitions Ausralia Inc., is presenting Double Bush Binding an international exhibition of designer bindings at Depot Gallery II, 2 Danks Street, Waterloo, Sydney (29 March - 12 April 2006). The exhibition will be officially by margaret Whitlam AO at 6.30pm on 28 March.

For more information contact Sabine Pierard (02) 9958 5008

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The venue for the 2006 Museums and the web conference is Albuquerque, New Mexico (22-25 March 2006). John O'Brien of Soul Solutions (who built the databases for this site) will be attending.

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International book artists who were guests at the Libris Awards, Artspace Mackay will be working at different venues around Australia in the comming weeks. Marshall Weber & Narae Kim will be with Dianne Fogwell, Edition + Artists Book Studio, Australian National University, Canberra; Scott McCarney & Keith Smith wth Wim de Vos and Adele Outteridge, The Studio West End, Brisbane; and Odine Lang with Ron McBurnie, Monsoon Publishing, James Cook University, Townsville.

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Three positions are being advertised in the Department of Australian prints at the National Gallery of Australia. For full details see NGA website.

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Permanent Press (the newslaetter of the Newcastle Printmakers Workshop), March 2006, carries a tribute to long-time printmaker and member of NPW, Shirley McCaster who died in February.

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Sydney dearler Rex Irwin is celebrating 30 years in the trade. His current exhibition Important works on paper, includes awealth og great prints. These includeetchings by Picasso, Matisse, Miro and Auerbach, lithographs by Guston and woodcuts by Dine. Certainly an exhibition to see. (21 March - 15 April)

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Joseph Lebovic Gallery Collectors' List no.CL118, 2006 has, as usual, an amazing array of material from well known, but rarely seen Penleigh Boyd drpoints from the 1920s to the set According to Des Essientes a set of collaborative prints by Imants Tillers and George Baldessin. The catalogue includes 156 items, most of which are illustrated.

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The artspace mackay Libris Awards, the first National artists' books prize in Australia, was announced at the opening of the exhibitions and conference Focus on artists' books 3 on 10 March 2006. The inaugural awards were selected from 178 entries from across Australia.

The awards were
> Category 1: The Mackay City Council National Artis' Book Award (acquisitive), was awarded to Wester Australian artist Clyde McGill for his screenprinted book They burt my boat (Perahu) today.
> Category 2: Blue Horizons Regional Artists' Book Award (aquisitive), was awarded to Deborah Beaumont from Toowoomba, Queensland for her Wednesday wides, a book made of colour newspaper spoils.
> Category 3: Mackay Queensland Homes Young and Emerging Artists' Book Award (aquisitive), was awarded to Queensland artist Caitlin Sheedy for her collaged artists' book A traveller's journal.

"An initiative of the Mackay City Council through Artspace Mackay this biennial awards seeks to develop awareness of the Council's significant collection of over 400 artists' books and to develop the collection further through acquisitions of new works by leading Australian artists working in the field of artists' books"

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Entry forms are now available for the Freemantle Print Award for 2006. For information email joe@freemantle.wa.gov.au or visit www.fac.org.au.
Entries close 5pm, 19 May 2006!

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Trent Walker who has been working with Port Jackson Press as their intaglio editining printer has accepted a position at Northern Editions Darwin. His position at PJP has been taken up by Joel Wolter who has previously worked as editioning printer for Littlewood and Hart Gallery/Workshop, Melbourne.

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Stephen Coppel, Keeper of Modern Prints at the British Museum will visit Australia in March 2006. Stephen is preparing an exhibition of Australian prints for display at the BM in 2008. The British Museum has a collection of recent Australian prints, and well as material from the 1920s-30s and the colonial period. Stephens visit was funded by the Gordon Darling Foundation.

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Patrick McCaughey's book Voyage and Landfall: the art of Jan Senbergs will be launched by Brian Johns on Wednesday 1st March 2006 at the State Library of Victoria.

This is the first book on the major Australian painter and printmaker Jan Senbergs.

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In December 2005 Basil Hall (of Darwin based Basil Hall Editions), was the guest of Russell Craig and Jonathan Tse at the Queensland College of the Arts Print Workshop. While there Basil worked with Brisbane artists Bill Robinson (producing a four plate colour etching) and  Judy Watson.

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Dr. Chiu-Yee Chung, Lecturer at the University of Queensland will present a lecture on Lu Xun and the New Chinese Print Movement and Dr Rosemary Roberts, Lecturer, University of Queensland will talk on Chinese women in the twentieth century - insights from the exhibition on Friday 3 March 2006 at the Gold Coast Art Gallery. These two perspectives are being given to accompany the exhibition Selected Chinese Prints of the 20th Century, 1900-1999.

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Jake Smallman and Carl Nyman have put together a lively book on stencil art in Melbourne as part of the international series Stencil Graffiti Capital. The book profiles artists such as Dlux, Prism, Meek, Psalm, Sync, Ha-Ha and others. The book is illustrated with hundreds of colour photographs of the posters in situ.

Mark Batty & Carl Nyman, Stencil Graffitti Capital Melbourne,  New York: Mark Batty Publisher, 2005. ISBN 0-9762245-3-4

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A splendid book on printmaker and painter Grahame King - a founder of the Print Council of Australia and the Australian Print Workshop - has been published by Macmillan Australia. The book which is exstensivly illustrated in colour, was written by Sasha Grishin with contributions by Roger Butler, Libby Bright, Diana Davis, Caroline Field, Martin King, Anne Virgo and Jenny Zimmer. As well as these essays, the book also contains a list of all of the artists printed work. The art of Grahame King was launched by Gerard Vaughn, Director of the National Gallery of Victoria on 10 December 2005.

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The second sale of the book collection of Rodney Davidson A.O., O.B.E. will be held at Australian Book Auctions, Melbourne on 27 February 2006. The sale includes books poduced before the gold-rush, covering the period 1810 - 1850.

The sale includes many rare Australian plate books including Augustus Earle  Views in New South Wales, 1830; John Carmichael Select views of Sydney, 1829; Charles Atkinson Views throgh Hobart-Town, 1833 (the only copy) and John Skinner Prout Views of Melbourne and Geelong, 1847.

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The Print Council of Australia is calling for submissions for its Commissioned prints for 2006. For information see the PCA website or email adminpca@netspeed.net.au. The 2006 selectors are Roger Butler, Senior Curator and Anne McDonald, Curator, Department  of Australian Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Australia.

Entries close 20 February 2006.

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Petr Herel: The Cancellation series will open at Canberra Museum and Art Gallery on 21 January 2006. Petr Herel explains "In 2003 I was approaching an important personal anniversary, the marking of 30 years of my life in Australia (the first 30 years having been spent in Europe). I felt as if I was at a crossroad from which the second half of my life would transcend the first. To mark this event I would select 30 to 35 etchings together with their original intaglio plates, representing a cross-section of my work from 1973 to 2003. I intended to then make the final proof and place the original and final proofs and the plate in a portfolio."

The exhibition with hansome catalogue continues to 2 April 2006.

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Australian Galleries, was established by Tom and Anne Purves in the Melbourne inner-city suburb of Collingwood in 1956. The Gallery now directed by Stuart Purves, has four venues, two of which specalise in works of art on paper. Happy 50th birthday!

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Annette Vincent's "art is still centered on her fascination with gum (eucalyptus) trees and especially the great River Red Gums growing along the Murray River. These beautiful and often ancient trees are under stress due to the drought that afflicted Australia in the past few years as well as reduced river flows induced by increased irrigation. She spent a lot of time in the studio, developing a technique ("Chine Colle") that combines coloured rice paper superimposed on her etchings. Tears and rips in the thin, damp paper as it is applied provide unexpected and often beautiful effects".

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Contemporary Australian prints from the collection.
Art Gallery of New South Wales, 3 April – 6 June 2004.

This exhibition presents a selection of contemporary Australian prints from the Gallery's collection. It includes major multi-sheet works, intimate wood engravings and etchings, prints by Aboriginal artists, artists' books and works from portfolios, and reveals something of the diversity of printmaking practice in Australia over the last fifteen years. [AGNSW blurb]

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