Lithograph on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/stephen-willats-2147" aria-label="More by Stephen Willats" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Stephen Willats</a>
Wall Print
Purchased 1983
architecture
Berlin - non-specific
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
diagrammatic
domestic
drawing
emotions, concepts and ideas
fine arts and music
formal qualities
Germany
graffiti
hallway
house
interiors
lifestyle and culture
modernist
objects
periods and styles
photographic
places
residential
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townscapes / man-made features
urban environment
paper print lithograph
Wall Print
image: 203 × 152 mm
Purchased 1983
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/willats-wall-print-p07947" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07947</span></a> <b>Wall Print</b> 1980
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<br/>Offset lithograph 8 × 6 (203 × 152) on paper 11 7/8 × 10 5/8 (298 × 270), published by Jurgen Schweinebraden, East Berlin
<br/>Inscribed ‘Willats’ on the back and ‘Wall Print no.80’ and ‘12’ and ‘edition specially made for Jurgen Schweinebraden in East Berlin during June 1980. Edition distributed throughout Eastern Europe’
<br/>Purchased from the artist (Grant-in-Aid) 1983
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<br/>Steve Willats is not 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/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>printmaker</span></a> and this work is unique in his oeuvre. It was produced at the request of the Schweinebraden Gallery in East Berlin and followed a successful exhibition of Willats's ‘Lurky Place’ project held there in 1981.
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<br/>The images on the print are a pair from a series discovered and developed by Willats during his period on a DAAD Scholarship in Berlin. He found that children in tower blocks had drawn on the concrete areas around the base depictions of idealised homes and smiling children. He contrasted one of these images 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/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photograph</span></a> of the tower block on which it was made. Willats has published these pairs in ‘Living in a concrete house’ (see <i>Leben in vorgegebenen Grenzen - 4 Inseln in Berlin</i>, exhibition catalogue, Nationalgalerie, Berlin, December 1980–January 1981; the graffiti house in <span>P07947</span> ill.p.15, with the tower block in which it was found). Willats prepared the print with two images disposed on the sheet; the line that connects the images was omitted since he anticipated that the completed print would not be allowed into East Berlin. He intended to carry the prints unfinished to the gallery and add a line in letraset by hand to each of them. In the event the border guards confiscated the unfinished prints and Willats was left with only a few sheets that he had decided not to take. As he wryly put it, ‘the work is about a wall and suffered at the hands of a wall’ (interview with the compiler, June 1986).
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<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions</i>, London 1986
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-13T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
architecture Berlin - non-specific cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents diagrammatic domestic drawing emotions, concepts and ideas fine arts and music formal qualities Germany graffiti hallway house interiors lifestyle and culture modernist objects periods and styles photographic places residential society townscapes / man-made features urban environment