Making an impression

As the London Original Print Fair exhibits online, Emma Crichton-Miller explores the appeal of original prints for both artists and collectors

- Emma Crichton-Miller

THIS year, the London Original Print Fair (LOPF), which was due to run at the Royal Academy on May 1–3, is taking place virtually, in cyberspace, until the end of the month. The disadvantage for print lovers is that we cannot get close to the works themselves, to appreciate their textural qualities—the density and tone of the paper, the depth or shallowness of pigment, the thickness and angle of the inked line. The consolation is that we have a whole month to browse the images that print studios, galleries and publishers have gathered for our delectation and to focus on this often neglected aspect of artists’ production.

Whereas some artists are dedicated printmakers—Norman Ackroyd, for example, whose entire Bermondsey home is, in effect, an etching factory—many others, including potters and film-makers, as well as painters, turn to print regularly as a significant part of their art making. Both Christopher Le Brun and Rebecca Salter, the previous and current presidents of the Royal Academy, are serious printmakers, reinforcing and reinvigorating their ideas and images through prints alongside their main practice as painters.

Before photography transformed the reproduction of works, the primary role of printing was to duplicate or translate already existing images, not to create new ones. Throughout history, however, the medium has captured the imagination of artists, from Rembrandt and Dürer to Goya, Degas, Picasso and Warhol, each of whom created original work through print media, which could then be duplicated.