"I think this might be the first year since the late 1980's that I haven’t spent a wonderful spring evening at the Royal Academy viewing prints, seeing and chatting to a medley of dealers, clients and friends and generally soaking up the atmosphere that is unique to the annual London Original Print Fair. And although I was enormously disappointed like all the rest of the Fair’s loyal supporters, I must admit that I have loved trawling the virtual show especially having been given the task of choosing ten favourites.
There are, of course, certain artists who I am always drawn to possibly with a view to buying, to gnash my teeth for not buying years ago, or simply to enjoy. We are lucky enough to own a number of prints by Craigie Aitchison but I am still irresistibly drawn to Advanced Graphics to see what Bob and Louise have on their walls. I would very happily go home with a Crucifixion and a Mountain. Keith Vaughan has a similar hold and I adore both the landscapes and the figure studies. I was however particularly struck by the mix of poignancy and joy in Osborne Samuel’s Festival Dancers. Paupers Press have showcased Untitled Portraits by Sarah Ball the last couple of years and I thought them bewitching; somehow both nostalgic and timeless. Elizabeth Harvey Lee is a champion of Raymond Ray Jones – a name that I discovered through her a few years ago, and who could possibly resist his mysteriously romantic Portrait of an Artist.
As well as these old favourites, I did find myself attracted to images that chime with this extraordinary period we are living through. I imagine I am not unique in looking much closer at nature and our Kennington garden has seen a particularly wide variety of birds in the last month or so, galvanised I am sure, by our much more organised feeding regime. I think Dan Baldwin captures all the joy of seeing birds in flight and I particularly liked the pink and yellow version of Love and Light at the CCA Gallery. When we haven’t been cultivating the garden, we have been enjoying the strangely deserted streets of the City and the West End and in particular, the rather bleak beauty of the old factories and warehouses that can still be found in Southwark. I love Gerd Winner’s rendering of the Isle of Dogs from Gwen Hughes for this reason.
Now that we can get out a little more what better conveyance for doing so than in one of Humphrey Ocean’s Cars – you couldn’t fail to have a good time in his lime green creation from Emmanuel Von Bayer. And, where do you want to end up? – we can’t do that quite yet of course, but once we do, a bar just like the one Labourer found in Pennsylvania courtesy of Sarah Sauvin or alternatively, on the North Norfolk coast – The Flood Tide and Blakeney as imagined by Norman Ackroyd from the Brook Gallery.
My ultimate fantasy would be to own a Rembrandt etching and if not a self-portrait, I would very happily settle for a bearded old man, resplendent in a fur cap and fittingly, in defiant isolation, from Jurjens." Clare Pardy, Director, Hallett Independent Insurance.