A flashback to last Thursday, when Shane Jones and I took our friend Sue Verney (pictured above, left) to Australian Print Workshop Gallery to see the APW George Collie Memorial Print Award Exhibition. (See also last post). The 2020 award, which I share with the late Barbara Hanrahan, is something of a personal milestone, and I was thrilled that the accompanying show coincided with Sue’s visit.
Sue, who was visiting from London, has been enormously supportive of my artistic endeavours ever since I shared a flat with her in Holland Park way back in the 1970s and is one of the most influential people in my life.
I knew Sue would find the Australian Print Workshop itself fascinating, so we dropped into the adjacent access printmaking studios. It’s been awhile I’ve been there myself. In fact, most of my works in the show were printed there.
We were all very taken by the antique Columbian and Albion relief presses, pictured above and in the following two views.
Until last week, I hadn’t realised that the Miller & Richard press, shown in the last two views, had been donated to the APW by the family of one of my printmaking heroes, Murray Griffin (1903-1992). In the last century, I printed some of my early linocuts on one of these presses. The romantic in me would love to think it was this one, although it may not have been in the APW’s collection at that time.
Currently Sue is visiting family members in Adelaide before flying home to London tomorrow. Oh, how we will miss her.
Photo credit for top view: Bianca Arthur-Hull.