Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- Barry Flanagan 1941–2009
- Medium
- Etching on paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 201 × 163 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by Sue Flanagan, the artist's former wife 1985
- Reference
- P02781
Catalogue entry
This catalogue entry discusses a group of works; details of the individual work are given at the end of the introductory text.
Barry Flanagan
born 1941
P02723 - P02834 Group of 112 etchings and linocuts, various sizes. Presented by the artist’s former wife Sue Flanagan 1985
This group of prints represents nearly the entire printed output of the artist up to 1983 and is one of the largest public collections of his prints. The titles were all given by the artist. Those prints bearing the stamped monogram ‘f’ were stamped by the Tate Gallery at the artist’s request.
The artist has said that print-making represents for him a ‘traditional pursuit’. Flanagan began to make prints in 1970. His prints (and drawings) often have a very personal content and can be seen as akin to private memoranda. Sometimes used as gifts for friends, they record aspects of the artist’s personal life. He first published prints with the Rowan Gallery in 1972, a year in which his print-making was prolific. Thereafter he published series of prints with Bernard Jacobson Gallery in 1976 and Waddington Graphics in 1983.
In 1981 Flanagan exhibited a comprehensive range of his prints and drawings at the Mostyn Art Gallery, Llandudno. The exhibition travelled to Mold, Cardiff, Swansea, Southampton and London and then, in 1983, toured in Italy, France and Holland. In the early 1980s Colin Dyer, working with the artist in his studio, completed archival sets of prints using cream Vélin d’Arches paper. Those etchings in the Sue Flanagan donation printed on white paper are generally those which the artist printed at Petersburg Press, at Burleighfield Press (with David Harding) or in his own studio in the early and mid 1970s.
Many of the prints have a small dark rectangle at one of their edges which results from the etching process. David Brown explains:
In the preparation of etching plates, they are ‘smoked’ in a flame to produce a fine, even covering of wax, the plate being held by a pair of tongs and therefore unaffected by the ‘smoking’ process would be waxed later, but with these prints, Flanagan chose to eliminate this final stage leaving a small area etched by acid and absorbing the ink (Barry Flanagan: Etchings and Linocuts, exh. cat., Waddington Graphics 1984, [p.3]).
So characteristic of Flanagan’s etchings is this black mark, it can almost be seen as a second ‘signature’.
These entries are based on conversations with Sue Flanagan and Colin Dyer and have been approved by the artist.
P02781 Telephone
1972
Etching 201 x 163 (7 7/8 x 6 3/8) on paper 257 x 251 (10 1/8 x 9 7/8); plate-mark 201 x 163 (7 7/8 x 6 3/8); printed by the artist; not editioned
Printed inscription ‘r ring' and ‘1 ring' in reverse t.1. of image, ‘1 ring' and ‘r ring' in reverse t.r. of image, and other words; stamped with the artist's monogram ‘f' below image b.r.
Lit: (Elizabeth Knowles [ed.]), Barry Flanagan Prints 1970-1983, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, 1986, pp.10 and 29
The slightly molten form of the telephone, disturbingly cordless, recalls the organic shapes of Flanagan's sand-filled hessian sculptures of the mid and late 1960s. The printed inscriptions suggest not only the sound of the telephone but also the titles of some of the artist's earlier sculptures. For his first exhibition held at the Rowan Gallery, London in 1966 Flanagan created a sand sculpture entitled ‘ring n' (repr. Barry Flanagan Sculptures, exh. cat. Musée Nationale d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1983, p.16), made by pouring a hundred-weight of sand onto the floor and taking four scoops from the centre. ‘Ring 167', 1967 (T02062
repr. Tate Gallery Acquisitions 1976-8, 1978, p.46), is made of a circle of linoleum. However, the artist states that the print has no reference to his sculpture of the period and describes it as ‘a surrealist drawing of an important everyday object'. In its surrealist quality it is related to other etchings of this period, in particular ‘Grate', an image of a household fire-grate.
Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London 1988, pp.333 and 346
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