THE PRINT INDUSTRY
Exhibition hails 50 years of famous art studio
If you opened up John Mackechnie, you would probably find ink flowing through his veins. The director of the famous Glasgow Print Studio for 40 years, he maintains it was working as a copy boy, running errands at the old Sunday Express in the 1960s, which set him up for a life in print.
“Almost all my family worked in the newspaper industry in the days of hot metal,” he explained to me as we tour a new exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery devoted to 50 years of the world-renowned hub for printmakers.
“I worked every Saturday from the age of 15 until I graduated from Glasgow School Art. I kept working at the paper until 1971. I even went on to be head boy, organising all the shifts. It was a great grounding for management later in life.
“I studied drawing and painting at art school but working in newspapers gave me a deep affinity with print.”
The artist and master printmaker, 73, has been at the helm of Glasgow Print Studio (GPS) for the last 40 years. Overseeing The Love Of Print exhibition is one of his last major tasks as director before he stands down next year “to be a poor artist”.
Mackechnie admits the job has been all-consuming. He told me his artist wife Sue used to joke that when their children were small, she had a photo of him at the end of their beds so they would recognise him.
There have been many challenges, not least when he took over as general manager at GPS in January 1983. He said: “To survive, we shrank the staff and I acted as director, workshop manager, etching technician, and even exhibitions organiser.”
Thanks in no small measure to his efforts, the print studio survived to tell the tale and this exhibition, which opened on Friday, showcases 225 original prints by 130 artists from Scotland and beyond, offering a snapshot of changing styles and technology.
GPS first opened its doors in 1972 in a dry rot-infested ground-floor flat. Today, it is based in state-of-the-art studios and gallery space. Such is its standing on a world stage, that when King Charles wanted to set up a community print studio at Dumfries House in Ayrshire, he called on Mackechnie and his team. The roll call of artists who have worked at GPS is like a who’s who of the last 50 years in Scottish art. Its founding members were all artists. Take a bow: Bill Blacker, John Faulds, Sheena McGregor, Jacki Parry, Jimmy Cosgrove, Beth Fisher, Eileen Murray and Philip Reeves.
Reeves, who taught printmaking at GSA, helped to establish Edinburgh Printmakers in 1967 then GPS in 1972, having identified a lack of support and premises for graduating artists.
By 1974, there were 50 regular workshop users. It was GPS’s first director, Calum Mackenzie, who spearheaded a move in 1976 to Ingram Street. Not only did it provide a larger workshop and gallery space, it became a social and artistic hub.
John Byrne made some of his best-known artworks from the early ’90s with the studio but his association goes back further. His first play, Writer’s Cramp, starring Alex Norton, Bill Paterson and John Bett, was staged at GPS in 1977. The original poster, designed by Byrne and made at the studio, is on display at the exhibition.
Mackenzie encouraged this crossfertilisation of art and literature and went on to set up Print Studio Press to publish books by emerging writers including Liz Lochhead, Alasdair Gray and Tom Leonard.
Elizabeth Blackadder learned to etch alongside Mackechnie after he invited her to make prints at the studio in the 1980s. “We collaborated to make her earliest etchings,” he said. “I taught her the rudiments of soft ground, hard ground, aquatint, sugar lift and spit bite. She was such an able, natural and enthusiastic printmaker.”
So-called New Glasgow Boys Adrian Wiszniewski, Ken Currie, Steven Campbell, and Peter Howson also worked with GPS to produce some of the most identifiable artworks of their careers.
The Love Of Print spans the generations. One section, Here and Now, shows off 50 newly commissioned works. The public will be able to buy these prints which include work by the likes of Kate Downie, June Carey and Adrian Wiszniewski.
Not all the artists are known to the public but one of my favourite prints is an updated version of a bestselling etching made by Fiona Watson called Just Little Words.
Running throughout The Love Of Print is the story of a resilient creative space where artists experimented with styles and technical wizardry. Here’s to the next 50 years.
The Love Of Print runs until March 12. Tickets are £7.50 or £5 (concessions). Free entry for under-16s