Etching on paper
Tate Collection
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<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>
Colours Up Induction
Presented by Sue Flanagan, the artist's former wife 1985
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dictionary definition
emotions, concepts and ideas
inscriptions
irony
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text
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paper print etching
13 December 2010 – 31 July 2011
2011-07-31
13 December 2010 – 31 July 2011
2011-07-31
2010-12-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-12-13
Gallery 6
Collection based display
Colours Up (Induction)
image: 151 × 251 mm
Presented by Sue Flanagan, the artist's former wife 1985
<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><span>
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<p><b>Barry Flanagan</b><span>
born 1941 </span>
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<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/flanagan-colours-up-induction-p02723" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P02723</span></a> - <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/flanagan-yacht-ii-p02834" title="View the 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 </span>
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<p><span>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. </span>
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<p><span>The artist has said that <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>print-making</span></a> represents for him a ‘traditional pursuit'. Flanagan began to make prints in 1970. His prints (and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawings</span></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. </span>
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<p><span>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 class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>. Those <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etchings</span></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. </span>
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<p><span>Many of the prints have a small dark rectangle at one of their edges which results from the etching process. David Brown explains: </span>
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<blockquote><span>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 class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/ink" title="Glossary definition for 'Ink'"><span>ink</span></a> (</span><i>Barry Flanagan: Etchings and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/linocut" title="Glossary definition for 'Linocut'"><span>Linocuts</span></a></i><span>, exh. cat., Waddington Graphics 1984, [p.3]). </span>
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<br/><span>So characteristic of Flanagan's etchings is this black mark, it can almost be seen as a second ‘signature'. </span>
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<p><span>These entries are based on conversations with Sue Flanagan and Colin Dyer and have been approved by the artist. </span>
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<p><span><span>P02723</span> </span><b>Colours Up (Induction)</b><span>
1972, reprinted </span><i>c</i><span>.1983 </span>
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<p><span>Etching 151 x 251 (6 x 9 7/8) on cream Vélin d'Arches paper 382 x 565 (15 x 22 1/4); plate-mark 151 x 251 (6 x 9 7/8); watermark ‘ARCHES | FRANCE'; printed by Colin Dyer </span><i>c</i><span>.1983; not editioned</span>
<br/><span>Printed inscription ‘to michael barsley' t.l. of image, a block of text printed in reverse in the centre of image (see below), ‘induction' near bottom of image; stamped with the artist's monogram ‘f' below image b.r. </span>
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<p><span>The block of text in the centre of the print reads from right to left as follows: </span>
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<blockquote><span>Coloursupp (Kul'arsupp) </span><i>n</i><span>
Inaccurate perjorative | diminutive for colour magazine publised [</span><i>sic</i><span>] with national | newspaper. Orig. Feb. 1962 on advent of | Sunday Times Colour Section (re-named Sunday Times Magazine 1964). "The colour supp. has, in | fact, turned out to be the experiment no-one | but the customers like" - Francis Williams, Feb. 1963. | Coloursupp </span><i>adj</i><span>. stylish, modern, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/avant-garde" title="Glossary definition for 'Avant-garde'"><span>avant-garde</span></a>. </span>
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<p><span>The title ‘Colours Up' uses a play on the sound of words of the sort found, for example, in the title of </span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02756" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02756');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02756</span></a><span>, ‘Grown Upstalking'. Flanagan has confirmed that this reference to colour magazine supplements sprang from his friendship with David King, then Art Director of the Sunday Times Colour Magazine (see also </span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02746" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02746');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02746</span></a><span>). </span>
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<p><span>The inscription ‘induction' may mean either a preamble or an inference of a general law from a particular instance. The instance might be in this case the way in which the neologism ‘coloursupp' had become a synonym for ‘stylish' and ‘avantgarde'. </span>
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<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84</i><span>, Tate Gallery, London 1988, pp.333-4</span>
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Catalogue entry
2004-09-17T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction dictionary definition emotions, concepts and ideas inscriptions irony non-representational pun symbols and personifications text universal concepts