LOPF Online | The Platform for Prints

The British Museum's Quest for Variety

Recent Print Acquisitions selected by the Curators: Isabel Seligman

Isabel Seligman is Monument Trust Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawing

William Gear Abstract Composition

Abstract Composition is a particular favourite of mine for its straddling of both print and drawing. The work is a transfer monotype, a technique introduced to Britain in the 1930s by the émigré artist Jankel Adler, who had likely learned it in Germany from Paul Klee, one of the masters of the form. Drawing on the reverse of a sheet laid over an inked plate picked up the inked line, while any pressure from the artist’s hand gave the work its characteristic mottled effect. William Gear was born in Fife and studied at Edinburgh College of Art and Edinburgh University. Gear was a dedicated printmaker and experimented with monotype early on in his career. He was associated with the CoBrA group with whom he exhibited in Copenhagen and Amsterdam in 1949, and Jackson Pollock, with whom he exhibited at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York the same year. This work was bought at the print fair from the Redfern Gallery, with funds generously provided by long term friend of the Department David Paisey.

Victoria Sin something more violent than recognition

Another hybrid work – part-drawing, part-print – this was made by taking an imprint of the artist’s drag make-up with a face wipe. A new interpretation of the monotype technique, it uses the artist’s face as plate and make-up in place of ink. Sin uses drag to interrogate questions of identity and desire and their ongoing series Impressions (2016–) archives the feminine labour involved in each performance, drawing attention to the performativity of gender and identity. The work was acquired with funds from an Art Fund New Collecting Award, which is being used to acquire drawings by emerging British artists. This work will be shown along with the other drawings acquired with the Award in an exhibition in Gallery 90 in 2022.

Kara Walker no world

The beauty of this moving work by Kara Walker belies its brutal subject. Its title a pun on the ‘New World’, and it brings into focus the violence of the Atlantic passage for the millions of enslaved people who were transported from Africa to America, an estimated 15% of whom did not survive the voyage. A slave ship is borne up by black hands which rise from a sea in which a woman is submerged; on land caricatured silhouettes offer a glimpse of the future for those who survived. Walker’s recent commission for the Turbine Hall of the Tate Britain Fons Americanus (2019) offered another perspective on these events which continue to resonate. Printed by Burnet Editions and published by Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, the delicate lines of the ship are rendered in velvety drypoint, while subtle layers of aquatint suggest the ocean’s depths. This is another work generously presented by Margaret Conklin and David Sabel.