COLLECTOR'S CHOICE

In making this selection, I stripped away any thoughts of the art market, of what may or may not be a good investment - that is always a folly, as no one really knows if a work of art will make you a profit (and if they claim to, run a mile). Instead, I went with gut instinct, an instinct heavily influenced by our current isolated state. I thought about it as a visual playlist, prints to satisfy every lockdown mood.

There are the quiet, contemplative companions, like Yoko Omoni’s linocut of a tree, and the lyrical, magic realism of Tom Hammick’s Cloud Island. Some are more politicised, perfect for putting the world to rights—Barbara Kruger’s arresting subway poster, Surveillance is your Buswork from 1980, is chillingly fitting for these restricted times. Others are softer, domestic contemplations of interiors, such as Celia Paul’s man staring wistfully out of a window and David Hockney’s Home from 1969—and what a lovely home. Then there are those that just struck a chord—how could you not choose Chris Orr’s prescient Crisis? What Crisis (2020) for some black humour. And the bucket list prints by printmaking greats: I have always longed for an Egon Schiele, a Whistler and a Paula Rego.

Images of the sea and of wilderness drew me in particular: take CRW Nevinson’s rare lithograph The Blue Wave from 1917 with its clear debt to Japanese wave painting; Frank Brunner’s inky, twinkling Nordic View; Peter Doig’s slick, seal-like Surfer emerging from the waters, and the harsh beauty of Emma Stibbon’s Ice Floe, Antarctica (2020). Others provide outlets for some frustrated wanderlust, such as Patrick Procktor’s delicious lithograph of Cataract, Aswan from 1985, those thin drapes blowing in the dry desert breeze.

Quite unintentionally, these prints range in date from the 19th century to 2020, and in price from a couple of hundred pounds to over £50,000. And there are myriad printing processes too - from the impulsive, romantic energy of Susie Hamilton’s one-off monoprint In a Wood (1996) to Grayson Perry’s appliqué Marriage Flag, via woodcuts, linocuts, etchings, lithographs and screenprints. Therein lies the beauty of prints.

A final mention to the Pop artist Larry Rivers’ Crotch - I think we can all relate to sitting around eating popcorn in our quarantine pants at the moment. Or perhaps that’s just me.