Page 60 - Studio International - June 1972

An etcher on The incredibly seductive possibilities of a print at the Hayward Gallery in 1970 was blatantly
from an etched plate have always led people up about this tendency. There were some notable
etchers blind alleys, and the weaker production of exceptions, Ivor Abrahams among them, but
inexperienced etchers usually stems from an it showed that the real star to operate at Kelpra
inability to realize when they should put down was Chris Prater himself Too many artists
Norman Ackroyd
the brush and pick up the needle, and vice have a preconceived idea of what etching is
versa. For etching was never a medium about, and closed minds. Without participation,
to be approached lightly. Nor was it ever a they allow a rather bored series of plates to be
medium to be approached too reverently, or in produced in, usually, a very mechanical
a spirit of pedantry. To extract the most from manner, printed in a sterile fashion and
it, one should develop a perfect mixture of packaged and marketed on the gilt-edged art
arrogance and humility. The real life in market. In Henry Moore's Elephant Head
etching is always achieved by giving the medium series, all this is obvious to me. For obvious
its head, by being positive and knowing enough reasons it is disturbing to find Moore
about it (and I don't mean technically) to sense demeaning etching, and consequently himself;
what the game is. Its beauty is in its economy. in such a way. The series smacks of creative
Its limitations are its elasticity. It is a indifference; yet one cannot particularly blame
perfect instrument both for capturing the elusive Marlborough, as the artist surely always has
and for the full frontal attack. the final say on what represents him.
I would distinguish between three main The print boom of the last fifteen years
types of etched prints being produced today. has now overshot itself. An immense amount
There are prints which result from an over- of trash has been riding on the backs of a few
indulgent and perpetually inbreeding internationally known artists who have
technical virtuosity; there are prints which are produced prints for genuine reasons. But it is
the result of the realization that they are now clear that the production of a lithographer
lucrative; and there are prints which are done like Jasper Johns, an etcher like David Hockney,
by people who love and understand the medium. or a linocutter like Wayne Thiebaud, proves
The first group, I feel, has nothing to do the irrelevance of poor quality elsewhere.
with etching at all. It misses the point of Furthermore, the very flatulence of the market
etching while waffling around in a spongy has, in fact, had a good effect. I find it refreshing
world of effect, trickery and other escapism. to find David Hockney and Richard Smith
This is the world of the nebulous, where there re-establishing prints as something available
is no precision of thinking. Under the to everyone by their production of editions of
umbrella of a so-called advance in etching five hundred or so at £3.50 each. Other artists
techniques Hayter and Lasansky have had a are refusing to jump on the bandwagon of
devastating effect in the last thirty years. making prints purely to feed the masses;
Even today their influence is dominant others still are realizing that there may be
in at least half the art schools in Britain and the something other than money to be got from a
USA. How many artists, as a result, have had print. So in fact I am rather optimistic. And
to go through a misdirected initiation into there are small areas where it seems that etching
etching ? And too many etching studios, as a is alive and well, especially in Britain. Although
result, have been isolated within a cocoon of I have great admiration for certain of the
false mystique which can be intimidating to German and central European schools of
painters and sculptors who genuinely want to etching they have never really excited me. I
use the medium. Anybody in fact can learn think that it is in this country that some of the
to etch in a day or two if they really want best etchings are being produced—small
to. I have seen it happen too often to doubt it. niches and happenings which have really used
For a long time there has been a and stretched the medium in new directions.
movement to make printmaking a main field In contrast to Moore's Elephant Head
of study in British art schools. But this series, one might look at the etchings done in
can only help to perpetuate false mystiques, and 1968 by another sculptor, Brian Wall. The metal
slow down the rate at which these mystiques used for his series of sixteen plates was
might be swept away. The right place for an rather soft zinc—not the best material for
etching studio is anywhere where it can be getting perfect results but with unsung
available and accessible to painters and qualities of its own. The plates were
sculptors. I would, in fact, like to see more approached first rather tentatively, and then
post-graduate etchers—graduate painters and with gathering compulsiveness and increasing
sculptors—having the chance to concentrate involvement. A rapid immersion in the'
on etching for a year or two after DipAD. medium produced some of the best use of pure
The field of commercial prints, however, is aquatint I have yet seen. In the touching of two
much more insidious. In this area the production very positive white areas in a dense black field,
of etchings (or prints generally), is done for the precise delineation of points of contact and,
purely financial reasons. Thus, the wealthy most important, the way that etching was
galleries can fill the gap caused by the really instinctively used to give this clarity,
increase in the price of paintings and recreate were utterly convincing. They showed a full
the inexpensive art-object. Sadly, this requires realization of the fecund and direct possibilities
the co-operation of the artist. The Kelpra Show of pure aquatint.