Etching on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/barry-flanagan-1100" aria-label="More by Barry Flanagan" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Barry Flanagan</a>
Left Hand By Right Hand
Presented by Sue Flanagan, the artist's former wife 1985
body
caption
emotions, concepts and ideas
hand
humour
inscriptions
people
symbols and personifications
universal concepts
paper print etching
1 March 2003 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2 April 2003 – 31 May 2003
2003-05-31
2003-04-02
Drawing Center (New York, USA)
18 June 2003 – 24 August 2003
2003-08-24
2003-06-18
Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, Australia)
26 September 2003 – 28 March 2004
2004-03-28
2003-09-26
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
29 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2004-09-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-03-01
The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act Selected from the Tate Collection
Tate partnerships & programmes
Left Hand By Right Hand
image: 248 × 248 mm
plate: 248 × 248 mm
support: 368 × 282 mm
Presented by Sue Flanagan, the artist's former wife 1985
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<p>
<i>This catalogue entry discusses a group of works; details of the individual work are given at the end of the introductory text.</i>
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<p>
<b>Barry Flanagan</b> born 1941</p>
<p>
<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02723" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02723');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02723</span></a> - <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02834" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02834');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02834</span></a> Group of 112 etchings and linocuts, various sizes. Presented by the artist's former wife Sue Flanagan 1985</p>
<p>This group of <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print">prints</a> 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.</p>
<p>The artist has said that print-making represents for him a ‘traditional pursuit'. Flanagan began to make prints in 1970. His prints (and <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing">drawings</a>) 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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper">paper</a>. Those <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching">etchings</a> 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.</p>
<p>Many of the prints have a small dark rectangle at one of their edges which results from the etching process. David Brown explains:</p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>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 <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/ink">ink</a> <br/>(<i>Barry Flanagan: Etchings and </i><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/linocut">Linocuts</a>, exh. cat., Waddington Graphics 1984, [p.3]).</blockquote>
<p>So characteristic of Flanagan's etchings is this black mark, it can almost be seen as a second ‘signature'.</p>
<p>These entries are based on conversations with Sue Flanagan and Colin Dyer and have been approved by the artist.</p>
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<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02726" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02726');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02726</span></a> Left Hand By Right Hand 1970</p>
<p>Etching 248 x 248 (9 3/4 x 9 3/4) on paper 368 x 282 (14 1/2 x 11 1/8); plate-mark 248 x 248 (9 3/4 x 9 3/4); printed by the artist; not editioned<br/>Printed inscription ‘y ordeal' and ‘twist | &amp; | shout' left centre; stamped with artist's monogram ‘f' below image b.r.</p>
<p>This is one of several etchings which take as their theme the depiction of depiction (see also <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02729" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02729');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02729</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02730" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02730');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02730</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02731" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02731');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02731</span></a>). Elizabeth Knowles writes that in prints showing the making of an etching, ‘Flanagan lays an image of etching itself on the paper by drawing his own hand on the plate as it makes a line and by circumscribing a plate within the plate' ([Elizabeth Knowles (ed.)], Barry Flanagan Prints 1970-1983, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, 1986, p.28).</p>
<p>The artist has said that the inscription ‘y ordeal' alludes to the difficulty involved in drawing and is a pun on the phrase ‘your deal'. ‘Twist and shout' is the title of hit records by Chubby Checker and The Beatles in the early 1960s but refers here to the card game Twist.</p>
<p>Published in:<br/>The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London 1988, pp.333-4</p>
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2022-03-29T00:00:00
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body caption emotions, concepts and ideas hand humour inscriptions people symbols and personifications universal concepts