Scottish printmakers kept out of the picture

print workshops.

SCOTTISH printmaking? Dire. Scottish print workshops? Dire. Scottish

contemporary art? Dire. These are the signals sent out by the Scottish

National Gallery of Modern Art and its director Richard Calvocoressi.

Ignoring Scottish work, unless mediated by London promoters and

dealers, profoundly affects what the Scottish public sees. While our

print workshops have established an international reputation,

Calvocoressi stands aloof in his ivory tower. He has never bought a

single thing from Glasgow Print Studio, Dundee or Edinburgh Printmakers,

nor does he visit, or give moral support to, the workshops.

''Neither Calvocoressi nor his deputy Keith Hartley have ever been to

Aberdeen's Peacock Printmakers,'' its director Arthur Watson told me

yesterday on the phone from Germany where he is installing over 400

prints. ''Their total purchase over 21 years is a solitary Bellany print

about seven years ago. I took them a pile of work but Calvocoressi said:

'We've made a big commitment to Charles Booth-Clibborn and that about

covers it'.''

The GMA has just launched an exhibition of Clibborn's Paragon Press

publications: 250 prints by more than 40 leading British artists from 35

projects (only five printed in Scotland) as a major event titled

Contemporary British Art in Print 1986-95.

''Over the past 10 years we've acquired most of these projects. It's

this collection which is the stimulus to the present exhibition and

accompanying catalogue,'' says Calvocoressi. The lavish catalogue, which

cost #40,000 to produce and is selling at #17.95 (#22.50 after the

exhibition), illustrates all 496 Paragon prints and (despite its errors)

is ''set to become a standard reference work''.

''I hope they'll do the same for us, but I doubt it,'' commented John

Mackechnie, director of Glasgow Print Studio, and, like Watson, used to

the GMA's cold shoulder.

Robert Adam, director of Edinburgh Print Makers, goes further. ''It's

a disgrace. Scottish public money is being used to promote a privately

owned commercial London enterprise which now focuses entirely on English

artists; give it the stamp of approval and provide a catalogue as a

selling tool for Clibborn to use world-wide.

''The catalogue reads like a Festschrift: 'The major print publisher

of our times; the finest, most remarkable print projects this century.'

What ridiculous hype! The catalogue is also inaccurate -- and proves how

ignorant the GMA is about Scottish print workshops. They began in 1967,

not 1973. They are not co-operatives. Beth Fisher did not merely edition

Night of Islands -- she generated it. Other names and dates are wrong.

History has been re-written to the greater glory of Clibborn's Paragon

Press.''

Irony of ironies, the original plan was to exclude the four Scottish

sets from the GMA show entirely, merely exhibiting them in Edinburgh

University's Talbot Rice Gallery. And even these four sets didn't make

any money for the artists. Explains Ken Currie: ''The GMA bought

entirely via Clibborn.''

Of his acclaimed Story from Glasgow, printed in Cumbria, Currie says:

''I got no money. We split the edition 50-50. Both Kelvingrove and GMA

bought from Clibborn. He sold his half to key collectors and museums --

covered the ground. I'm stuck with my half cluttering up the studio.

There's no-one left to sell to. You'd think local museums would have the

sense to buy from the artist.''

Clibborn is to be congratulated for the way he has hooked the GMA. I

admire his enterprise which goes hand in hand with terrific energy,

dedication, and an endearing personality. Moreover, his genuine

enthusiasm has encouraged both artists and printers to produce some of

their best work. As middle-man he is superb. Single-handed, working from

home, he has instigated prime collaborations. Paragon Press may sound

big but it's a one-man band.

However, by embracing his productions wholeheartedly, the GMA has

totally excluded Scotland's print studios. This is wrong. As Watson

says: ''Charles has done a lot, but that doesn't absolve the GMA of its

responsibilities.''

Charles is the son of Edward Booth-Clibborn, for 30 years a leading

publisher of books on graphics, illustration, and design and founder of

the British, European, and American Design Annuals. John Tomlinson, head

of graphics at Glasgow, explains: ''You submit work to his annuals and

if selected, pay him. For designers it's a way of advertising --

bringing your work to the attention of art directors and clients.''

Charles learnt well at his father's knee. Armed with his publisher's

silver spoon, while still an Edinburgh University history student he

visited curators, dealers, librarians, and publishers in Rome, New York,

and on America's West Coast. Back in London this fully-fledged prodigy

leapt straight into publishing, launching the Scottish Bestiary (still

one of his best projects) at Whitehall's palatial Banqueting Hall in

October 1986.

Clibborn swims with the tide. He began his enterprise with fashionable

figurative Scots like Wiszniewski, Currie, Howson, and Alan Davie in the

1980s and continued with Le Brun's etchings (price #19,000) and

Gormley's Body & Soul (#3500). Now he commissions fashionable 1990s

monochromatic minimalists such as Rachel Whiteread, Alan Charlton, Lisa

Milroy, and Damien Hirst. The show is worth a visit to look back at the

Glasgow Boys and see the current crop of cool, clinical -- even arid --

conceptualists.

Originally text played a vital and integral role in his limited

editions. George Mackay Brown wrote the poems for Clibborn's first

portfolio. Will Maclean spent almost as long assembling his 10 poems as

drawing the images.

Nowadays text is increasingly ignored, while hi-tech print methods are

pursued. John Hilliard's 1990 Seven Monoprints (#3000) employs

photomontage printed via Scanachrome. Grenville Davey's 1993

screenprints of a glass eye and glass stopper utilised

computer-generated images, the photos transferred to AppleMac and then

computer analysed with Acute Focusing, Gauzian Blur techniques, and

digitised colour separations. ''Letterpress is expensive. It's cheaper

and quicker to do without,'' observes Watson.

The GMA's annual acquisitions budget is #110,000 from a Scottish

National Galleries total of #1.17m, which has just been cut by

half-a-million. (English museums remain the same. Is Scottish Secretary

Ian Lang less of a fighter, or is he questioning buying policy?)

Calvocoressi can spend various sums of #10,000 on his own authority.

Over that he has to clear it with his director. So how much has he spent

with Clibborn? ''When one is buying from dealers, it's a special

price,'' is all he would say.