Katsunori Hamanishi Animal Prints

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

After Maurits Cornelis Escher (Dutch, 1898–1972) Sky and Water II Printed vinyl A 1960s copy of the 1938 original 21 x 17 in. (53.5 x 43 cm.) t...

Come Here and I'll show you something beautiful is a limited edition drypoint etching finished with oil pastel by artist and printmaker, Kate Boxer. The work is soft purple pastel c...

James Seymour (1702-1752) A Standing Leap at a Gate Mezzotint with hand colouring Image size 10 x 14 in Framed size 16 1/2 x 20 in James Seymour was an English artist renowned for h...

"The Meeting of Her Majesty's Stag Hounds on Ascot Heath" is a large colorful mezzotint engraving of an extensive British hunting scene. It was created by Sir Francis Grant...

Takashi Murakami - PANDA FAMILY AND ME, 2013 Offset lithograph with silver on paper Edition: 300 Size: 50 x 50 cm Offset lithograph with silver on paper hand-signed by Takashi Murak...

HOPI EAGLE DANCE is an original hand drawn, limited edition lithograph by the prominent Native American artist Dan Namingha, a member of the Hopi tribe. H...

Edition of 300. Murakami signed and numbered in silver marker pen along the lower right edge. Offset lithograph with cold foil stamp and high gloss varnishing on UV paper. 70 x 52.8 ...

Francisco Toledo Venados (Deer), circa 1975-1985 Color etching and aquatint Plate: 8 13/16 x 11 11/16 inches Sheet: 15 x 20 7/16 inches Edition A/P (Artist Proof) This limited editi...

David Shrigley
 White Elephant, 2021 Linocut on 300gsm Somerset paper.
 Paper size: 44 x 57 cm hand-signed and numbered by the artist edition of 100 published by Schafer Editions and...

Cat, 2023 By Christopher Mudgett Rendered in Mudgett’s unmistakably powerful style, this striking black-and-white linocut distills the essence of a cat into a bold, abstracted form....

Rural Resistance Series - Home Guard Rural Resistance field commander  Rural Resistance Ground Force by Harry Bunce displaying a triptych of the Rural Resistance series. The works i...