The Art of the Screenprint 1960s-1980s celebrates a period in East Anglian Art when screen printing developed from it being a commercial process to a fine art medium.
At the centre of the exhibition is an unsung hero of printmaking in East Anglia, namely Mel Clark who ran a screen printing unit at the Norwich School of Art. In an attempt to counter the perception of screen printing as a mechanistic not fine art process, Clark invited all staff at the School to make screenprints with him. Edward Middleditch was Head of the School of Art, and we have an extremely rare copy of the screenprint he made as part of this initiative.
Other artists included who worked directly with Clark are Mary Webb and Ian Tyson, whilst Derrick Greaves and Colin Self taught alongside him at Norwich School of Art. We have two examples of Self's major Power & Beauty Series from 1968, copies of which were exhibited to such acclaim in Self's retrospective at Norwich Castle last year.
To accompany the Norwich faction we have included three screenprints by Michael Rothenstein who adopted screen printing in his work from 1969, but rarely on its own.
Finally we have a work by Mark Lancaster, artist in residence at King's Cambridge, 1968-70 and a collaborator with Andy Warhol and Merce Cunningham Dance Co. in New York.