Sculpting the Line: 20th century, sculptors have been drawn to the medium. processes to work. eventually translate

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1 20 September september 2015 Sculpting the Line: British Sculptors as Printmakers Throughout the 20th century, sculptors have been drawn to the medium of print, often using printmaking processes to work on ideas that would eventually translate into sculpture. Henry Moore discussing proofs at the Curwen Studio, The Henry Moore Foundation. All rights Reserved, DACS 2014 / Graphic work is to me exactly the same as drawing. If you can draw well you can etch well because it is only using a finer point The fundamental ideas are based on drawing and good drawing is for me the ability to represent three-dimensional form in space, on a flat surface - perhaps that is why I think that sculptors should be even more concerned with being able to draw than painters. 1 Henry Moore, 1978 The exhibition Sculpting the Line: British Sculptors as Printmakers explores the relationship between two forms of art: sculpture and print.2 Throughout the 20th century sculptors have been drawn to the medium of print, often using printmaking processes to work on ideas that would eventually translate into sculpture, or sometimes to further expand upon the forms and ideas that drive their sculptural work. By displaying the sculpture of artists such as Lynn Chadwick, Barbara Hepworth, Bernard Meadows, Henry Moore and Eduardo Paolozzi, alongside their two dimensional graphic output, this exhibition sets out to explore the affinities between these two media, an area that has often been overlooked in studies of sculptors work. The earliest print in the exhibition is The Wrestlers, 1913, by the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. This was the artist s first and only linocut and displays a tremendous fluidity of form stemming from his skills as a direct carver working in stone and wood.3 Gaudier-Brzeska was one of the first 20th century artists to use linoleum in place of wood as a relief printing technique. The medium was taken up subsequently by his contemporaries, Cyril Power and Sybil Andrews, who favoured it because it did not leave a pattern like wood-grain and so allowed for cleaner, more graphic lines. 01

2 Gaudier-Brzeska captures perfectly the twisting and tumbling of these figures through a series of interlocking planes. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Wrestlers, 1913 (cast 1963), herculite. The Sherwin Collection, Leeds. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Wrestlers, 1913, linocut. Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection. Gaudier-Brzeska first became engrossed by the primal nature of wrestling upon visiting the London Wrestling Club in He admired the athletic qualities of the men with their large shoulders, taut enormous necks like bulls, small in build, firm thighs, slender ankles and feet as sensitive as hands. 4 He explored the artistic possibilities offered by the depiction of the wrestling match through dozens of sketches, two sculptures and one linocut, made between 1912 and It is interesting to compare the linocut and the related plaster frieze, pictured above. In both, Gaudier-Brzeska captures perfectly the twisting and tumbling of the fighters through a series of interlocking planes. Both convey violence and intimacy, as well as strength and a homoerotic sensuality. However, the linocut is much more abstracted than the relief, with the figures refracted by the medium and broken up into distinct areas of black and white. If the title of the linocut were removed entirely, it would be difficult to identify the scene as a wrestling match, so thoroughly are the figures subsumed by the patterned background. The subject of the frieze is much less ambiguous, the figures appear frozen in a single moment, calling to mind the protagonists in an ancient Egyptian frieze. The print, on the other hand, captures the bodies in a state of flux. It does not show simply one moment in time but rather a synthesis of moments that would have occurred throughout the fight. From linocut we move to wood-engraving, which is perhaps the single art form that Britain can claim to have invented. It is a technique in which a print is made from a design incised on the transverse section, or end, of a hardwood block using a fine engraving tool called a burin. The technique was developed in England in the last half of the 18th century. Its first master was the printmaker Thomas Bewick, whose illustrations for such natural history books as A History of British Birds (1797 and 1804) were the first extended use of the technique. 02

3 Wood-engraving subsequently spread as a commercial reproductive medium to power the publishing revolution of the 19th century throughout Europe and America. It was appropriated again in Britain as a medium for artists in two waves: the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1890s, and by the Modernists in the 1920s. The artist Gertrude Hermes emerged during this second wave. Gertrude Hermes, Fish, 1932, wood engraving. Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection. Gertrude Hermes Estate. A sculptor and wood-engraver, Hermes enrolled at artist Leon Underwood s progressive Brook Green School of Art in Hammersmith in 1921, alongside Henry Moore and Blair Hughes-Stanton. The school promised an alternative to the harmful and repressive influences of orthodox art training,5 and was built around unconventional lifedrawing sessions. Rather than holding one pose for an entire session, life models were instructed to change it frequently, emphasising form, volume and movement. This approach to drawing had a profound effect on both Hermes and Moore, who went on to explore bio-morphism in their sculpture. Hermes was also influenced greatly by the forms of the African tribal artefacts that both she and Underwood collected. Her contribution as a sculptor has been somewhat eclipsed by her career as a wood-engraver, but she was supremely gifted in both mediums. Hermes print, Fish, 1932, clearly shows her mastery of the woodengraving medium with its delicate intermediate tones suggested by fine parallel lines, and a wonderful attention to the detailed patterns occuring in nature. The forms of the fish are abstracted and highly stylised. The same can be said of her sculpture. The diminutive bronze piece Frogs II, 1947, reveals the influence of Gaudier-Brzeska in its angular approach to natural forms. The frogs limbs are reduced to their simplest shapes, becoming almost semi-abstract. With its flat planes and strong lines, it is strongly reminiscent of Gaudier-Brzeska s Bird Swallowing a Fish, c Hermes believed that the distinction between the decorative arts (printmaking, ceramics and textiles) and the fine arts (painting and sculpture) was an artificial split and one that was harmful to creativity. Of utmost importance to her was the spirit inherent in an object, as well as the skill and fidelity with which the conception was expressed, in whatever material.6 Gertrude Hermes, Frogs II, 1947, bronze. The Sherwin Collection, Leeds. Gertrude Hermes Estate. 03

4 A vital milestone in the story of 20th century artists prints was the establishment of the printmaking workshop Atelier 17 in Paris in 1927 by the English born printmaker Stanley William Hayter. Atelier 17 provided the facilities for contemporary artists to create their own intaglio prints, as well exhibit their printed work. Nothing quite like this had existed before. This was a place where painters and sculptors could come and learn the processes of engraving and drypoint in a relaxed and collaborative environment. It was frequented by artists Hans Arp, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso, to name but a few. British artists looked to the example set by Hayter s Atelier 17 studio and were inspired to experiment with intaglio printmaking. As the artist John Piper reflected, a lot of modern artists now realise that etching and line engraving are not the stuffy crafts that people of the older generations tended to think them and make them: that they are not necessarily imitative or reproductive, or expressive only of the sentimental or the acceptably pictorial. On the other hand, they can be vital and lively arts. 7 This was an important attitude change and a turning point in the history of artists print making. Hayter is represented in the exhibition by a print and a printed plaster work. His engraving Danse du Soleil, 1951, pictured left, depicts a dancing figure reduced to black geometric shapes. A series of alternating convex and concave curves emanate outwards, suggesting mathematical curves or lines of movement. The white lines and motif in the centre of the figure, perhaps where the belly button should be, are left un-inked and have been embossed so they almost leap off the page. Stanley William Hayter, Danse du Soleil, 1951, etching and engraving. Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection. ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London, Hayter was very interested at this time in how the two-dimensional line could be extended into the third-dimension. His explorations in this area reached their apogee in the plaster objects that he made by pressing an engraved metal printing plate onto plaster, leaving a risen impression of the design where the wet plaster was forced into the grooves. When dry, Hayter would go back and carve deeper into the plaster cast and sometimes add colour. He very much considered these plaster objects to be works of art in their own right and they are intriguing examples of dual objects that are both prints and sculptures.8 Hayter s prints such as Danse du Soleil call to mind the linear strung forms of Constructivist artist Naum Gabo s sculptures. This is hardly surprising when we realise that both shared an interest in the natural sciences and mathematics, in particular, wave motion, field theory and the geometry of curved lines. Though Gabo is primarily known for his three-dimensional constructions, he also made a significant body of unique woodcuts and wood-engravings. A selection of which are on display in the exhibition. He made the first of these prints in 1950 at the suggestion of William Ivins, formerly curator of prints at the Metropolitan Museum and author of the seminal book on printmaking Prints and Visual Communication (1953), and he continued the practice right through his life. In total he only made twelve designs, but printed varying versions of each design, showing how, by altering colour, tone, paper and orientation, he could radically change the nature and balance of a single composition.9 04

5 Gabo s prints, as with his sculptures, address the relationship between void and solid, mass and space, through carving. Naum Gabo, Construction in Space with Rose Marble Carving (Variation No. 2), 1969, rose marble and Perspex. Image courtesy of Annely Juda Fine Art. Nina & Graham Williams Naum Gabo, Opus 3, 1950, wood-engraving. Courtesy of Alan Cristea Gallery. Nina & Graham Williams To steady his hand when cutting his curving forms into the wood, Gabo used small plastic templates. These he could place differently or reverse. Their material, as well as the forms he gave them, echo his use of forms in sculpture. For example, if we compare Opus 3, 1950, with his rose marble and Perspex sculpture Construction in Space with Rose Marble Carving (Variation No. 2), 1969, pictured above, we see how he tested out the same formal theories in two and in three-dimensions. Both have a central form within a form, an angled plane turning on its axis, almost like a gyroscope. In his 1920 Realistic Manifesto, Gabo insisted that sculpture should no longer be an art of masses.10 In Construction in Space with Rose Marble Carving he demonstrated this theory by carving a thin disc of marble with a pierced centre that he suspended almost weightlessly within a Perspex surround. Similarly, his prints feature kernel-like forms floating on a spatial plane, free from all other points of reference. Some prints, like Opus 10, are reminiscent of the spiral forms of galaxies. The lines in his prints are nearly always in the negative, un-inked and unprinted. His prints, as with his sculpture, address the relationship between void and solid, mass and space, through the subtractive process of carving. Like Gabo, Barbara Hepworth found printmaking to be an excellent fit for her explorations into abstract form and that it suited her sensibilities as a sculptor. She produced her first lithographic prints in These were made during the pilot phase of the Curwen Studio, which was initially set up in St Ives (from ) and later operated out of Plaistow in East London. This was the first studio environment in the UK where artists could develop the techniques needed to make their own hand drawn lithographic prints, working in collaboration with the master printmaker Stanley Jones. 05

6 Barbara Hepworth, Three Forms, 1969, lithograph. Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection. Bowness, Hepworth Estate. Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms with White (Greek), 1963, Guarea wood. Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection. Bowness, Hepworth Estate. Lithography, as a printing process, was historically difficult for artists to access due to the equipment and expertise it required. The Curwen Studio was revolutionary in that it democratised the lithographic process, and was so successful that it became the de facto model for all artists printmaking studios that came after it. Hepworth s early lithographs were very experimental, gestural and painterly. They show her embracing the immediacy and freedom of the lithography process, which involves drawing onto a flat stone with an oil-based medium such as wax crayon. This method must have provided respite from the very labour-intensive method of carving in wood and marble. Hepworth produced a limited number of these prints which were sold through Robert Erskine at the St George s Gallery, but in the following decade she did not produce a single print. We do not know the reason for this break in her printmaking, but in 1969, Herbert Simon (Director of the Curwen Press) wrote to her compelling her to continue with the medium and requesting a new suite of lithographs. Simon suggested that, as a sculptor, she would find that she had a real affinity with the lithography stone. He also pointed out that this was a way of making it possible for people of modest means to own something by Barbara Hepworth. 11 The affordability and reproducibility of print was often the impetus for a sculptor to create a portfolio of prints, as it could be widely distributed and, compared to a bronze sculpture, could be bought relatively cheaply by budding collectors. Thus printmaking could be a lucrative sideline for sculptors who were in between commissions, as well as an enterprising way to grow the market for their work. After some encouragement from Herbert Simon, Hepworth produced a suite of works known as 12 Lithographs in 1969 under the gudance of lithographer Stanley Jones at the Curwen Studio. It was a huge commercial success and was quickly followed by a set of nine prints titled The Aegean Suite, , which developed her fascination with Greece making links between geometric forms and sites associated with ancient Greek culture which she visited in the early 1950s. 06

7 Hepworth saw printmaking as an opportunity to work on ideas for sculpture but also used the vocabulary of forms from her threedimensional work to determine the designs of her prints. As such, the relationship between her sculpture and her printmaking was a very fluid one, which saw her translating ideas from 2D to 3D and back into 2D again. The combination of precise line and form in her prints call to mind her late marble carvings, whereas the areas of organic texture are reminiscent of her bronzes with their heavily patinated interiors. If we examine her print Three Forms, 1969, pictured above, we can see how she masterfully combines the distinctive paint-like washes of lithography with the sculpted lines of her wood carving Two Forms with White (Greek), 1963, to produce an image that embodies both the qualities of printmaking and sculpture. Stanley Jones at the Curwen Studio, Another artist who fully comprehended the potential of printmaking as a complement to their sculptural practice, was the the artist Henry Moore. Although remembered foremost as a sculptor, Moore s graphic output of 719 prints created over a span of 55 years played a fundamental role in the development of his work. For Moore, the relationship between sculpture, drawing and printmaking was reciprocal and interdependent. As David Mitchinson, author of Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios (2010), remarked: Moore thought the subject matter of his printed work provided ways for the viewer to understand his three-dimensional forms. 12 Some of Moore s prints were working ideas for sculptures, while in other cases, he would model something first in plaster and then use it for the subject of a drawing or printed work. The work Six Stone Figures, , pictured left, shows six sculptural forms and is one of his more abstract prints. The shapes were inspired by Moore s plaster maquettes, which were small enough to be held in the palm of the artist s hand. The forms of these maquettes were based on his collection of found objects: bones, flints, pebbles and shells that filled his studio. These humble objects were at the heart of Moore s creative process and many of his monumental bronze sculptures began their life as these kernel-like forms which were then enlarged exponentially. Henry Moore, Six Stone Figures, , lithograph. Courtesy of Cartwright Hall, Bradford. The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2014 / Stanley Jones recalls visits to Moore s Studio at Much Hadham: The excitement in these visits was evident as new proofs and variations were unwrapped and viewed on the walls and floor. 13 This proofing stage could take anywhere between a couple of weeks up to a few years. It was precisely the versatility and flexibility of lithography, which could be altered ad infinitum over successive proof stages, that appealed to Moore. This was no doubt an antidote to the permanence and somewhat unforgiving nature of carving in stone or wood. Unlike Intaglio printing methods like engraving and etching, where the design is incised into intractable materials like wood and metal, lithographs are created by drawing an image onto a stone with a waxy crayon in an action akin to drawing. If mistakes are made, it is possible to simply scrape it off and start again. 07

8 In his visits to the Curwen, Moore would search under the presses for other artists images transforming their failures into his successes. He enjoyed the give-and-take of the medium that could develop a life of its own and he welcomed the chance accidents that would occur during the proofing stages. Eduardo Paolozzi, B.A.S.H., 1971, screenprint. Private Collection. The Eduardo Paolozzi Foundation, licenced by DACS Together with the foundation of the Curwen Studio, the establishment of the Kelpra Studio was another pivotal moment in the story of artists printmaking in Britain. Kelpra started in 1957, when the husband and wife team of Chris and Rose Prater decided to set up a studio for collaborative screen-printing. Their venture would go on to virtually define the English Pop print, and the studio is credited with almost single-handedly metamorphosing screen-printing into a fine art. 14 They had long and fruitful collaborations with Patrick Caulfield, Richard Hamilton, R.B. Kitaj and Eduardo Paolozzi. These artists chose the medium of screen-printing because it allowed them to maintain bold, bright colours when reproducing their works, and to combine found images in a collage-like fashion. Kelpra collaborated with trained technicians and made rare use of tools and machinery made for industrial and commercial activities. They developed techniques of posterisation, polarization, and tri-chromatic printing, which allowed artists to manipulate and restructure borrowed photographic imagery with great inventiveness. Paolozzi was a prolific printmaker and one of the first to exploit the screen-printing medium for his own artistic purposes. Screen-printing had previously been associated with commercial printing and advertising. It was, in fact, the commercial origins that made it the ideal medium for Paolozzi to use, espeially since his subjects were often culled from the mass media. B.A.S.H. is a perfect case in point (see image top left). In this print Paolozzi collages together a dazzling array of images from different sources, juxtaposing dead celebrity figures such as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, with robots, telephone and lava lamps, in a clear comment on American consumerism. Everything is connected by a colourful circuitry of lines and dials, and driven by a human heart that powers the machine. B.A.S.H. serves almost as a miscellany of images that Paolozzi would return to and plunder again and again for other prints, collages and sculpture. Eduardo Paolozzi, Mondrian Head, 1993, bronze. Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection. The Eduardo Paolozzi Foundation, licenced by DACS Paolozzi never viewed printmaking as a secondary pursuit, but as a vital generative force. If we look at his later sculpture Mondrian Head, 1993 (see image top left), we can see the continuation of ideas and images explored in B.A.S.H., as a fractured human head becomes subsumed by mechanical and robotic elements. With Mondrian Head as with B.A.S.H., nature and the machine are fused together into a grotesque whole. 08

9 Installation photograph of Sculpting the Line at The Hepworth Wakefield. Since the cutting-edge experiments of Kelpra, the Curwen Studio and numerous individual practitioners, of which they are too many to mention here, printmaking in Britain has developed in many new directions, and over the last twenty years it has become more visible, accessible and affordable than ever before. No longer merely secondary, supplementary or reproductive, printmaking is now a central part of many artists activity, the equal of their output in other media, and conceived as integral or complementary to it. However, as Susan Tallman points out in The Contemporary Print: From Pre-Pop to Postmodern (1996), in contrast to the acres of ink spilled on painting, sculpture, photography, or film, there has been remarkably little critical writing about the print. 15 Tallman made this statement in 1996 and since then a number of wonderful publications on artists printmaking have been written. However, in the main her assertion still holds true. Comparatively, there is a dearth of writing on prints and little writing on the fascinating subject of sculptors prints. As the exhibition Sculpting the Line: British Sculptors as Printmakers aims to demonstrate, some of the most exciting prints made during the last century were created by sculptors exploring the fascinating interplay between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional. Holly Grange, Assistant Curator

10 Acknowledgements: The author would like to extend her gratitude to the following lenders who made this exhibition possible: Blain Southern, Cartwright Hall, Collection of Stanley Jones, Alan Cristea Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery, The Sherwin Collection and Ian and Vivien Starr. The author would also like to thank Frances Guy and Simon Wallis for their comments and thoughts in the development of this text. Notes: 1 HENRY MOORE in conversation with Orde Levinson and David Mitchinson 1978 at the artist s studio in Much Hadham. Available from: 2 Artists represented in the exhibition are Lynn Chadwick, Henry Cliffe, Naum Gabo, Henry Gaudier-Brzeska, Barbara Hepworth, Gertrude Hermes, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Bernard Meadows, Henry Moore, Eduardo Paolozzi and Stanley William Hayter. 3 Direct carving is an approach to making carved sculpture where the actual process of carving suggests the final form rather than a carefully worked out preliminary model. It was introduced by Constantin Brancusi circa HENRI GAUDIER-BRZESKA, letter to Sophie Brzeska, 3 December 1912, quoted in EDE, H.S. (1931) Savage Messiah, p Prospectus for Brook Green School of Art. Quoted in EUSTACE, K. (1995) The Wood Engravings of Gertrude Hermes and Blair Hughes Stanton, p.9 6 CRANE, W. (1905). Of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Ideals In Art: Papers Theoretical Practical Critical. Available from: (Accessed September 2014). Hermes first showed with the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1931, becoming a full member in She was a firm believer in the aims of the Society as set out by Crane. 7 JOHN PIPER (1953) as quoted in POWERS, A. (2008) Art and Print: The Curwen Story, p.74 8 For a detailed description of this method see HAYTER, S.W. (1966) New Ways of Gravure, p For more information on Gabo s wood engravings see LYNTON, N. (2006) Naum Gabo: Monoprints. Published by Alan Cristea Gallery, London 10 GABO, N. (1920) The Realistic Manifesto, reprinted in NASH, S.A. (1987) Naum Gabo: Sixty Years of Constructivism, Tate Gallery exhibition catalogue, p.9 11 SIMON, H. (1966) in a letter to Barbara Hepworth. Website accessed, now expired. 12 MITCHINSON, D. (2013) Henry Moore The Printmaker : Draughtsmanship and Sculpture Available from: (Accessed September 2014) 13 JONES, S. (2010) Stanley Jones and the Curwen Studio, p FIELD, R.S. (1973) The Prints of Richard Hamilton, Wesleyan University, Davison Art centre, p.7 15 TALLMAN, S. (1996) The Contemporary Print: From Pre-Pop to Postmodern, p.7 10