It considers how artists have used a variety of printmaking techniques to exploit the potential of the printed line, from the thick velvety line of drypoint and the heavy cross-hatching of etching to delicate wood engraving and boldly coloured screenprints and lithographs. Spanning the 20th century and up to the present day, the exhibition includes Walter Sickert‘s masterly cross-hatched etching The Old Middlesex (c.1910), Ben Nicholson‘s rich drypoint Halse Town 1949 (1949), Eduardo Chillida‘s bold etchings, David Hockney‘s pared down linear etchings in Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy (1966-67), Henri Matisse’s Torse au visage coupe (1912) and Flanagan’s Killary Bay ‘79 (1979). The use of colour is explored in screenprints by Bridget Riley and Kenneth Martin, as well as Simon Patterson‘s witty lithograph reworking of the lines of the London tube map.
Artists: Frank Auerbach, Patrick Caulfield, Eduardo Chillida, Prunella Clough, Keith Coventry, Derek Boshier, Paul Coldwell, Lizzie Cox, Barry Flanagan, Lucian Freud, Derrick Greaves, Anthony Gross, Gertrude Hermes, David Hockney, Oskar Kokoschka, Kenneth Martin, Henri Matisse, Ben Nicholson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Simon Patterson, Pablo Picasso, Eric Ravilious, Walter Sickert, Richard Smith, Ian Tyson and Rachel Whiteread.
Exhibition runs from 19th February – 8 May 2022