Glasgow Print Studio celebrates 50th anniversary with Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum exhibition

A new exhibition celebrating 50 years of printmaking at Glasgow Print Studio is set to open at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum on Friday.

The Love of Print will showcase artworks created by celebrated Scottish artists in the five decades since it was formed in 1972.

The Love of Print will bring together over 225 significant prints by 130 artists, which collectively embodies a Who’s Who of Scottish art over the last 50 years.

Work by illustrious artists like Alasdair Gray, Barbara Rae and John Byrne represent some of the earliest pieces from Glasgow Print Studio’s incredible archive.

Many of the ‘New Glasgow Boys’ worked with the studio to produce some of the most identifiable pieces of their career. Prints by Adrian Wiszniewski, Ken Currie, Steven Campbell, and Peter Howson move the exhibition on through the 1980s, towards the turn of the century.

More recent renowned Scottish artists, often recognised more widely as Turner Prize winners and nominees, are also on show. Martin Boyce, Ciara Philips, Richard Wright, Jim Lambie and Christine Borland, who worked with Glasgow Print Studio to produce an incredible range of artwork, sit alongside work by less well-known printmakers.

Glasgow Print Studio has an international reputation as a major contributor to contemporary printmaking. With facilities amongst the most sophisticated in Europe it attracts artists from all over the world and provides a unique environment where famous names work alongside students and members.

One section, entitled ‘Here and Now’, comprises 50 newly commissioned works. The Love of Print offers upcoming artists, currently involved in the artistic practice of printmaking, an opportunity to display their work in one of Scotland’s most popular museum and art galleries.

Each artist featured in The Love of Print has gifted a print that will be accessioned into Glasgow Museums Collection.

Artists Kate Downie, Adrian Wiszniewski and Ade Adesina, who all have works in the show, were at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum to see the final preparations being made ahead of the exhibition opening on Friday.

Artist Adrian Wiszniewski said: “A stroll through Kelvingrove Museum on a Sunday afternoon is among my fondest memories. The collection reflects the personality of Glasgow, rich in its range and depth, often idiosyncratic and always democratic. The Glasgow Print Studio shares these attributes. Like Kelvingrove, the Print Studio has embraced the very Glaswegian belief that art is for all.”

John Mackechnie MBE RSA, Director of Glasgow Print Studio, said: “The story of Glasgow Print Studio is really quite remarkable, starting in 1972 with a group of enthusiasts with no money in a basement flat, but a need for a facility they could use to make prints after art school. Its progress since then has been quite meteoric and at the forefront of contemporary art from Scotland ever since, inviting the best artists in Scotland to work with them and then taking the work to an international audience.

“It has provided a facility for thousands of artists over the years and could fill the entire Kelvingrove Art Gallery with the prints made over its 50-year history. This snapshot illustrates the history of Glasgow Print Studio with over 200 works of art, memorabilia and videos to give the audience an insight into the inner workings of Glasgow's longest running visual arts facility”.

Founded in 1972 the Glasgow Print Studio was an artist-led initiative, which provided facilities and workshop space to artists using fine art printmaking. Unique to Scotland’s cultural landscape and central to the development of Glasgow’s Merchant City as the cities vibrant cultural quarter, the studios workshop, galleries, education space and other facilities now span three floors of Glasgow’s centre for art and creativity, Trongate 103.

Its entire ethos is to encourage contemporary and innovative printmaking through supporting artists, exhibitions, learning and conservation in a nurturing, creative environment backed by equipment, advice, and training to encourage everyone to participate in the art of printmaking.

The Love of Print opens on Friday and runs until March 12, 2023. Tickets are £7.50, concession £5, children under 16 are free.