Serious Play: Adventures in Abstraction Through Print
This quote is from Stanley William Hayter鈥檚 seminal 鈥橬ew Ways in Gravure鈥� that was first published in 1949 at a time when abstraction was emerging as the major preoccupation of avant-garde artists in the US, Europe and the UK. Hayter, founder of the hugely influential printmaking studio Atelier 17 seized on the possibilities of this moment to argue that printmaking was the ideal medium for the exploration of abstraction and could provide fresh potential for a revolution in image making. In the decades that followed a significant number of leading abstract artists made printmaking a central part of their practice. Prominent exponents including Joan Mir贸, Barbara Hepworth, John Hoyland, Victor Pasmore, Patrick Heron and Howard Hodgkin conducted a sustained exploration of the possibilities of print to create an extraordinary body of abstract graphic work.
The premise of Hayter鈥檚 argument was that the printmaking process was intrinsically suited to an exploration of abstraction. Making a print demands the deconstruction of an idea into its constituent formal parts: line, tone, colour, texture and then challenges the artist to navigate between these elements to construct an image, layer upon layer until a final outcome is arrived at. This would clearly have exciting implications for any artist interested in abstraction however printmaking鈥檚 potential for the unexpected 鈥� the 鈥榟appy accident鈥� 鈥� that puts complete control of the image just out of reach adds another rich dimension. Print is a capricious artform and while this might be considered by some artists to have alarming implications for creative control, in the right hands, it is an exciting provocation to the artistic imagination. When aligned to the almost infinite variety of mark-making that printmaking allows, the prospect opens up to explore an image that 鈥榞rows鈥� organically rather than simply marching towards a pre-conceived idea. The process itself therefore becomes the artwork with exciting possibilities for the adventurous artist that painting alone cannot deliver to the same degree. As Hayter put it with his characteristic relish: 鈥淚 feel that in undertaking any graphic work, the artist places himself in a position to allow miracles to happen to him.鈥�
Serious Play is an examination of how different artists harnessed a wide variety of printmaking techniques to deepen their investigations into abstraction. It is story of creative discovery and one which was often conducted in the company of Master printmakers who flourished during the period; highly skilled specialists such as Nigel Oxley, Stanley Jones, Kip Gresham and Robert Dutrou who could navigate the mysteries of carborundum, aquatint, silkscreen, lithography and help chart new territory for these techniques.
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This quote is from Stanley William Hayter鈥檚 seminal 鈥橬ew Ways in Gravure鈥� that was first published in 1949 at a time when abstraction was emerging as the major preoccupation of avant-garde artists in the US, Europe and the UK. Hayter, founder of the hugely influential printmaking studio Atelier 17 seized on the possibilities of this moment to argue that printmaking was the ideal medium for the exploration of abstraction and could provide fresh potential for a revolution in image making. In the decades that followed a significant number of leading abstract artists made printmaking a central part of their practice. Prominent exponents including Joan Mir贸, Barbara Hepworth, John Hoyland, Victor Pasmore, Patrick Heron and Howard Hodgkin conducted a sustained exploration of the possibilities of print to create an extraordinary body of abstract graphic work.
The premise of Hayter鈥檚 argument was that the printmaking process was intrinsically suited to an exploration of abstraction. Making a print demands the deconstruction of an idea into its constituent formal parts: line, tone, colour, texture and then challenges the artist to navigate between these elements to construct an image, layer upon layer until a final outcome is arrived at. This would clearly have exciting implications for any artist interested in abstraction however printmaking鈥檚 potential for the unexpected 鈥� the 鈥榟appy accident鈥� 鈥� that puts complete control of the image just out of reach adds another rich dimension. Print is a capricious artform and while this might be considered by some artists to have alarming implications for creative control, in the right hands, it is an exciting provocation to the artistic imagination. When aligned to the almost infinite variety of mark-making that printmaking allows, the prospect opens up to explore an image that 鈥榞rows鈥� organically rather than simply marching towards a pre-conceived idea. The process itself therefore becomes the artwork with exciting possibilities for the adventurous artist that painting alone cannot deliver to the same degree. As Hayter put it with his characteristic relish: 鈥淚 feel that in undertaking any graphic work, the artist places himself in a position to allow miracles to happen to him.鈥�
Serious Play is an examination of how different artists harnessed a wide variety of printmaking techniques to deepen their investigations into abstraction. It is story of creative discovery and one which was often conducted in the company of Master printmakers who flourished during the period; highly skilled specialists such as Nigel Oxley, Stanley Jones, Kip Gresham and Robert Dutrou who could navigate the mysteries of carborundum, aquatint, silkscreen, lithography and help chart new territory for these techniques.
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