Etching on paper
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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>
David Sylvester
Presented by Sue Flanagan, the artist's former wife 1985
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Sylvester, David
work and occupations
paper print etching
David Sylvester
image: 202 × 304 mm
Presented by Sue Flanagan, the artist's former wife 1985
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<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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<b>Barry Flanagan</b> born 1941<br/>
<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<br/>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.<br/>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.<br/>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.<br/>Many of the prints have a small dark rectangle at one of their edges which results from the etching process. David Brown explains:<br/>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> (<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]).<br/>
<br/>So characteristic of Flanagan’s etchings is this black mark, it can almost be seen as a second ‘signature’.<br/>These entries are based on conversations with Sue Flanagan and Colin Dyer and have been approved by the artist.<br/>
<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02747" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02747');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02747</span></a> <b>David Sylvester</b> 1972<br/>Etching 202 x 304 (8 x 12) on Saunders paper 295 x 396 (11 5/8 x 15 5/8); plate-mark 202 x 304 (8 x 12); watermark ‘T H SAU[NDERS ENGLAND]'; printed by the artist; not editioned<br/>Inscribed on back ‘David Sylvester' 1972 and ‘61' t.l.; stamped with the artist's monogram ‘f' below image b.r.<br/>A <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait">portrait</a> of the art critic David Sylvester (see also <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/P02748" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'P02748');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>P02748</span></a>). In conversation with the compiler on 5 April 1988 David Sylvester said that he met Flanagan in the 1960s and became an admirer of his work. In 1972 Flanagan asked if he might draw him and Sylvester readily agreed to sit for him, inviting him to come to his home in South West London. On the left of the print is shown one of Sylvester's collection of carpets.<br/>
<b>Published in:</b>
<br/>
<i>The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84</i>, Tate Gallery, London 1988, pp.333 and 340</p>
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Catalogue entry
2022-03-29T00:00:00
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adults art historian arts and entertainment beard body couch critic domestic furnishings individuals: male interiors literary living room man named individuals objects people portraits rug Sylvester, David work and occupations