Screenprint on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/stephen-buckley-828" aria-label="More by Stephen Buckley" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Stephen Buckley</a>
Les Flons Flons
Purchased 1982
abstraction
colour
emotions, concepts and ideas
fair
formal qualities
geometric
irregular forms
leisure and pastimes
music and entertainment
non-representational
pattern
paper print screenprint
Les Flons Flons
image: 772 × 1018 mm
Purchased 1982
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/buckley-les-flons-flons-p07754" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07754</span></a> <b>Flons Flons</b> 1981–2
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<br/>Screenprint 30 3/8 × 40 1/8 (772 × 1018) on Arches paper, printed by Douglas Corker at Kelpra Studio and published by Waddington Graphics
<br/>Inscribed ‘Stephen Buckley 1981’ b.r. and ‘18/70’
<br/>Purchased from Waddington Graphics (Grant-in-Aid) 1982
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<br/>The title of this <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</span></a> is not translatable into English as it means the sound and atmosphere of a fair or carnival; the artist told the compiler it was ‘maybe a bit like the smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd’ (this and other quotations from correspondence, March 1985). The print was made concurrently with a <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/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> of the same title which was completed in January 1982. These were followed by a further four ‘Flons Flons’ paintings, the last of which was made in August 1982. All the ‘Flons Flons’ works are also related to 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/m/monoprint" title="Glossary definition for 'Monoprint'"><span>monoprints</span></a> Buckley made at Alan Cox's workshop Sky in the Spring of 1982.
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<br/>This print is one of three made at the same time at Kelpra, the others being ‘Album’ and ‘Akenside’ (the latter has sometimes been known as ‘Jesmond’). This was the first and to date the only time Buckley worked at Kelpra. ‘Flons Flons’ was the first to be made; it is built up with <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> made actual size on tracing cloth using a water soluble opaque <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>. There were seven screens/colours’. The orange mesh to the left was done ‘from masking tape on tracing cloth exposed directly onto (the) screen’. The background was made up from two photographic separations from Buckley's original full size drawing and the leaf shapes and striped discs were done from two and three photographic separations respectively. The colours were finalised through ‘instinct and trial and error plus an idea in my head that I wanted print colours rather than paint colours’.
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<br/>This entry has been approved by the artist.
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<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions</i>, London 1986
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Catalogue entry
2004-10-13T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction colour emotions, concepts and ideas fair formal qualities geometric irregular forms leisure and pastimes music and entertainment non-representational pattern