Canberra -based artist printmaker Gillian Mann died on Saturday 29 December 2007, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October. She was aged 68.

English born, Mann migrated to Australia in 1971, and for over three decades taught at the Canberra School of Art (now ANU School of Art). Mann taught at the school with with Jorg Schmeisser, and helped make it a centre of excellence in printmaking.
 
Much of her most recent work was a protest against world violence in all its forms; her work The chest  was awarded the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 1990.

The artist recorded the last months of her life on her blog and colleagues and friends have added their memories and affectionate regards for the artist to the site. She will be sadly missed.

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British based, Australian born Katie Clemson will be remembered for her encouragement of all aspects of printmakng, in both Australia and England.

Born in Temora, NSW in 1942, she travelled to Europe in 1970 and studied at the Central school of Arts and Design in London under Blair Hughes Stanton, Michael Rothenstein and Gertrude Hermes. Clemson was part of both the Australian and British print worlds, White Gum Press established in 1988, published works by Australian and English artists. Clemson died of cancer on 23 November 2007.

Images of her works can be seen at her website which also presents readings from her funeral service and links to obituaries.

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Stephen Coppel writes: We have just put the P&D database online. It has over 220,000 works and more than 100,000 images. It is ongoing with updates uploaded every week as work continues to be catalogued and digitally scanned. Go to www.britishmuseum.org, then click Research; then Search the collections. It has both Simple and Advanced Search tools. The Advanced Search is sophisticated and powerful; check the Help screen first. You will see how many Australian prints and drawings we now have in the collection.

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The Winter edition of Imprint, the magazine of the Print Council of Australia, has articles on printmakers Monique Auricchio (who has been working in the top end for the last decade), Michael Winters, Judith Rosenberg, Jenny Kitchener and Robert Clinch. There are reviews of the Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition of Australian etchings and engravings 1880s to 1930s from its collection; 'the humanist project of William Kelly'; The Story of Australian Printmaking 1801-2005' and another 20 pages of previews, reviews and news from the printworld.

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A major exhibition that highlights many of the great Australian prints in the Art Gallery of New South Wales (5 May 22 July 2007). All the best names are there -Tom Roberts, Norman and Lionel Lindsay and the remarkable Jessie Traill. There are works by a host of other Australian printmakers, many purchased around the time of their production. The catalogue is available on the web as a pdf file and can bbe down loaded as either in klow of high resolotion (this is the second AGNSW downloadable catalogue the other was for Theo Scharf). Exhibition and catalogue are highly recommended.

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'Skizzen', my exhibition of watercolour monoprints opened very successfully at Helen Maxwell Gallery on Friday night. The works in 'Skizzen' are drawn from my recent residency in Switzerland and are small rubberstamp monoprints in watercolour on paper. [Horacek newsletter] See examples.

Concurrently at Helen Maxwell Gallery are the exhibitions 'On the Skin' by Barbie Kjar, and Big ones little ones - prints by Irrkelantye artists.

Helen Maxwell Gallery is at 42 Mort Street, Braddon, ph.6257 8422. The three exhibitions are on until 28 April. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-5pm. 

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The National Gallery of Victoria has advertised the position of Curator of Prints and Drawings. Applications close on 13 April 2007. See details.

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Michael Roseth has recently opened a new printmaking studio located in Northcote, Melbourne. Michael is a practicing artist, arts educator, and professional printmaker. He has studied at the College of Fine Arts and the National Art School in Sydney, Southern Cross University in Lismore, and the Pratt Institute in New York. In 2002 he was chosen by Master Printer Kenneth Tyler to work at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, where he spent a year working as a printer in training, collaborating with artists and working as an editioning printer and paper maker. Since 2004 he has worked as a printer at Northern Editions and Basil Hall Editions in Darwin. He has also worked at Megalo Public Access Print Studio in Canberra, and Har El Printers and Publishers in Israel.

Michael's new studio is set up for all intaglio and relief processes. He will be using ferric chloride for etching copper, and copper sulphate for etching aluminium. He also has experience with UV printmaking techniques such as solar plate and is able to help artists’ combine digital imaging with traditional techniques. LoosePress

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Melbourne printmaker Belinda Foox has been awarded the inaugural Burnie Print Prize. To find out more about Belinda see her website. Belinda's exhibition Loca will be at Beaver Galleries, Canberra 28 March - 16 April, to co-incide with the Australian Print Symposium. 

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Printed images of colonial Australia, the first volume of Roger Butler's 3 volume history of prints and printmaking in Australia has been released. It is the first comprehensive study of the subject. Covering the Australian colonial period, the book has 60,000 words of text in its 300 pages and is illustrated with over 350 illustrations in colour.

The book will be launched at the opening of The story of Australian printmaking 2001 - 2005, the evening of the first day of the Sixth Australian Print Symposium.

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Imprint, the journal of the Print Council of Australia, has distributed its first issue of 2007. It contains articles on Raymond Arnold's Bayeux Soldats etchings, The National Gallery of Australia exhibition The story of Australian printmaking, the Satoru Itazu Workshop from Japan, and a review of the the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art by Noreen Grahame. News, reviews and previews are also included.

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The 2007 Hutchins Art Prize for works on paper will be judged by Kirsty Grant from the National Gallery of Victoria. First prize is $15,000. Entries close 15 June 2007.

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The March 2007 issue is an exploration of the use of words in the Visual arts. The issue is edited by Richard Tipping, poet, artist and lecturer at the University of Newcastle. It will be launched at the State Library of Queensland on 14 March. More...

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Entries are invited for for the Hazelhurst art on paper award 2007. The major prize is $15,000. Entries are due by 4 June 2007. View the website.

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On Saturday 31 March there will be a special session on Australian Books at the Sixth Australian Print Symposium. The speakers:

Alex Selenitsch has  exhibited his visual poems, artist’s books and sculptures since 1969. His works on paper focus on the subtleties of language, including the fluidity of translation. In 2001, Alex was the Gordon Darling Fellow, documenting the collection of Australian artists’ books at the National Gallery of Australia.  Alex lectures in Architecture at the University of Melbourne.

Wayne Crothers has spent many of the last 20 years researching traditional Asian prints and producing contemporary artwork in Japan and Australia. His large-scale water based woodblocks, installations and other projects can be seen as a form of mind and body mapping that are a reckoning of the environment and society in which we find ourselves.

Clyde McGill lives in Fremantle, working in printmaking, drawing, artists' books, performance, installation and video. His current interests include borders, words, threads and equality. He will talk about the central role tht artists' books have in bringing together all the facets of his practice. Clyde was awarded the Artspace Mackay Libris Award for National Artists' Books in 2006.

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This free exhibition at the State Library of Victoria, showcases a selection of superb artist books and prints created at the Edition + Artist Book Studio at the Australian National University. The exhibition celebrates the art of the book, and the special relationship between image and written word. It will appeal to lovers of art, books and literature.

Between 1996 and 2005, the Edition + Artist Book Studio (E+ABS) brought together artists, writers, printmakers and bookbinders to explore the medium of print and the book in ways that challenged their conventional art practices.

This exhibition features around 90 of the printed works and artist books created under the direction of master printer, artist and lecturer Dianne Fogwell (also the exhibition curator). It includes works by leading Australian artists, many of them new to the book or print medium, including Jason Benjamin, GW Bot, Fiona Foley, Euan Heng, Bruno Leti, Margaret Olley, Jorg Schmeisser, Udo Sellbach and Robyn Wallace-Crabbe.  [SLV media] More here

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Dear Friend of Printmaking, If you still have not sent your works then please have a look at the conditions http://www.lessedra.com/entry.php?d=conditions and prepare your entry in the next 30 days.

Welcome to join us for our Festival of Contemporary World Printmaking Art from June 7th until August 31st exhibition with full color printed catalogue. http://www.lessedra.com/catalogues.php   Looking forward to your participation. With my best wishes from Sofia.

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The Works of Art on Paper Curator’s Forum, follows the Australian Print Symposium on Monday 2 April – many will know what a great day it is. For those who haven’t, the day provides an opportunity for an informal round table get together to discuss what curators are doing at the moment, research, exhibitions, cataloguing, storage or any of those niggling print issues that you would like to discuss with someone else. There is no charge for the Forum.
 
If you wish to register please email anne.mcdonald@nga.gov.au or call on 02 6240 6416.

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The post-auction press release from Larasati Fine Art Auctions, Jakarta 11 February 2007 noted: 
'It was also a day of recognition for Indonesia’s print making world when an album consisting 11 prints created by various prominent artists such as But Mochtar, Mochtar Apin, and Popo Iskandar titled Liberte (lot 74) made an impressive debut at LARASATI. Bidding started at Rp 1 million and a few minutes later it was sold for Rp 14.040.000, almost six times higher than its middle estimate'.

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Entry forms are now avaiable for The Southern Cross University Acquisitive Artists' book award for 2007. Entries close 26 July 2007. Details here, or ring (02) 66 269421

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This landmark exhibition draws almost exclusively from the vast Australasian print collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Included in the exhibition will be, prints by John Lewin, the first images printed in the colony, as well as many exceptionally rare works from colonial Australia. The first painter printmakers are represented by etchings (including the first print by Tom Roberts), and woodcuts. There are major groups of works by Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor as well as the linocuts by Sydney women of the 1930s. War and depression prints, rarely seen, are included. From the print revival of the 1960s and 1970s are prints by, Bea Maddock, John Brack, Brett Whiteley, and many others. The exhibition concludes with prints by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists including Dorothy Napangardi and Dennis Nona. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 30 March- 3 June 2007. A free exhibition.

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Northern Editions printmaking studio and gallery currently has two key printmaker positions available in its Darwin studio. Both jobs are specifically for editioning printmakers who have experience in edition printing and working collaboratively with artists to create limited edition fine art prints.

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eX de Medici, Canberra based artist, photographer, printmaker and performance artist who has been a practising tattooist since the early 1980s, will be keynote speaker at the Sixth Australian Print Symposium. eX will focus on her politically charged works, particularly United spectre #3, which was created during her recent residency at the Australian Print Workshop.

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 Proof: Contemporary Australian printmaking. National Gallery of Victoria 9 December 2006 -  1 April 2007

The printed image, with its unique capacity to be reproduced in multiple versions, offers fertile ground for contemporary artists. So too does the variety of means by which such images can be created, from traditional techniques including woodcut and etching, to the newest developments in digital printing technology.

Today's artists explore the expressive potential of the contemporary print in many ways. Some utilise printmaking techniques in conjunction with the specialised formats traditionally associated with the multiple image, including the print portfolio and the illustrated book, while others adopt an experimental approach that moves beyond familiar expectations of the printed image.

This exhibition samples recent printmaking practice, featuring a selection of contemporary works from the NGV's permanent collection of Australian prints by artists including Mike Parr, Lesley Duxbury and Milan Milojevic.[NGV media] more...

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