How Edinburgh Printmakers made a lasting impression on the history of Scottish art

Blueprint for the Future, by Kate Downie

There is something special about setting foot in a print studio. In fact it’s more than a studio, it’s a workshop – a hive of industry as artists and studio technicians flit between presses, rinse the ink from screens, carefully etch on stones or copper plates and gather round as new prints are revealed.

Edinburgh Printmakers, Britain’s first open access printmaking studio opened in 1967 and became more than just a space for artists and graduating art students. It redrew the map of contemporary art in Britain, provided the resource and support to allow artists in Scotland to flourish (alongside the addition of Glasgow Print Studio and Peacock Arts Centre in Aberdeen) and its open access policy saw a community grow as artists looked beyond their own disciplines and embraced the freedom printmaking offered.

On arriving at Edinburgh Printmakers in 1992 I felt the energy of that freedom in the bustling studio and small galleries in our former home at Union Street. What was visible though was just the tip of an iceberg that had seen so many significant artists in Scotland create work in collaboration with the studio team.

As we settle into our new home at Castle Mills that tradition continues. While lockdown pressed pause in the studio we took a moment to properly explore the work in our archives of over 4,000 prints, a handful of which feature in a new online selling exhibition. Readers will recognise names like John Bellany, Alan Davie, Graham Fagen, Callum Innes, Carol Rhodes, John Byrne, Rachel Maclean and Calum Colvin but might know less about how printmaking has added a new dimension to these artists’ work or allowed them to explore lesser tried techniques or approaches.

For many artists – including the international roster I have included here – printmaking might not be their first practice so they approach the process with fresh ideas and challenges for us here in the studio. It's a partnership – we bring technical know-how and our own creative input when we are working with an artist on a print project. This relationship often brings out the best of the artists' potential and not only creates stunning artworks but helps to push the boundaries of printmaking to a whole new level.

Edinburgh Printmakers enjoyed a long established partnership with John Bellany that spanned over 40 years from the 1970s. He became our most prolific collaborating artist, producing over 60 print editions. His life’s work was commemorated in the 2013 exhibition, John Bellany: A Life in Print.

Bellany predominantly chose etching for his printmaking output throughout his career and he would regularly collect prepared copper plates when in Edinburgh. He worked prolifically and speedily and would invariably arrive at the studio with completed plates, eager to see them etched and proofed. Accordingly, his etchings chart the major stages and themes in his work throughout his career. For From the Archive… we have selected The Barber one of his works created for a retrospective in 1986 one of the shows celebrating our move to Union Street.

In subsequent years artists like Alan Davie – one of David Hockney’s biggest inspirations – perfectly illustrated the potential for polymaths to push printmaking further. David has been described as Scotland's most important artist of the 20th century. He was a printmaker, painter, poet, jazz musician, jewellery designer and (to some) a shamanic "maker of magic."

Davie combines imagery from different world cultures with celebrations of music and language. His compositions are loaded with signs, symbols and words. He alluded to Jungian psychoanalysis, Pictish symbol stones, and zen philosophy. His compositions borrow from imagery of mythic and poetic ancient cultures.

This print in the current show, Insignias for Magic, was one of a set of 13 etchings produced by Davie at Edinburgh Printmakers in 2001. At the time he was visiting Edinburgh regularly to oversee the production of his tapestry for the University of Edinburgh being woven at Dovecot weavers. He created this set of works with technical assistance from Alfons Bytautas, our senior etching technician. Enhancing the graphic quality of his characteristic symbolism, the etchings were printed with the addition of a fine chine-collé of silk paper.

Another Scottish polymath and cultural heavyweight, John Byrne has worked regularly with printmaking over the years. His 2014 print Moonstruck was created while Byrne was working on the mural for the ceiling of the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh, which features similar imagery. Byrne enjoyed working in stone lithography as it allowed him to draw fluidly with crayon while also scraping back with a blade to achieve fine white lines. As a night owl, Byrne likes to work in his studio at home so the stone was carried to his top floor flat so he could work on the drawing there. A smaller and lighter stone was chosen accordingly!

Landscape with red, blue and black, by Louise Hopkins

One of my favourite prints in the collection is Carol Rhodes’s Roads Buildings (Night) 2014, a 13-colour screen print where the process mirrors Rhodes’s own painstaking landscape painting. Rhodes was awarded a travelling scholarship and residency by Edinburgh Printmakers and the British Council in 2013-14 through a joint project with the Scottish Print Network called Below Another Sky. This print was the main outcome of her residency during which she worked closely with studio printer Gillian Murray. She meticulously built up the print layer by layer over several months to achieve the subtle colour layering, printing in transparent glazes of inks. The print is characteristic of her practice, depicting an empty, fictional, man-made landscape from an aerial viewpoint.

Artists are of course at the heart of the development of Edinburgh Printmakers and the generosity of artists including Callum Innes and Rachel Maclean has seen the organisation benefit from a donation of a limited number of prints to help raise funds for our move to our new home and state of the art facilities at Castle Mills. Maclean’s The Lion is a six colour screenprint printed at the Edinburgh Printmakers studio by Gillian Murray. The print is based on a still from Maclean’s film The Lion and the Unicorn, which was commissioned by Edinburgh Printmakers for Reflective Histories: Contemporary Art Interventions at Traquair House in 2012, and which toured to London’s National Gallery.

While Maclean, just like Calum Colvin, does not employ printmaking techniques, the work’s method of montage and collage resembles such processes. Similar to Colvin’s still photography, Maclean’s filmic layering or montaging (most evident in the fact that she is the only actor, even in scenes which involve two protagonists) corresponds to print processes, whether they be colour etching or screen print.

Our galleries may be closed at the moment, but we hope this exhibition will still allow people to bring Scottish art into their homes, whether on their walls or on their screens.

Alastair Clark is Studio Director and current Master Printer at Edinburgh Printmakers. From the archive… is a digital exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers Viewing Rooms at www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk and runs until 31 January. Prints are available to buy with prices starting from £220.

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