The Impressed Image
Old Blah ! .....4/98
Archived demented ramblings - for previous outbursts click here
On my travels around cyberspace to accumulate some useful links I have been heartened by the generally friendly nature of all those I have bumped into. This geniality does not seem very evident on my home shores (UK), particularly in the field of Print collecting and Research. The Washington Print Club is an enviable Institution that has no counterpart here, and your Galleries and Museums are positively effusive in their attempts to improve access to their collections.
When a colleague enquired as to our local galleries holdings of Prints, the 'Keeper' of Art replied that his job was to 'keep' them from the clutches and paws of the soiled masses of humanity and was most reluctant to divulge his hoard. It transpires they have an almost complete collection of Frank Brangwyns etchings that haven't seen the light of day since he misguidedly deposited them there. I am sure I could give them a much more congenial home. A recent forage to another Museum with a huge Print Collection revealed things that have not been out of their boxes for fifty years, judging by the dust. My interest was much to the surprise of the staff, where looking at anything other than Old Masters has clearly revealed me to them as an intellectual pygmy and a source of passing astonishment and bemusement.
Much as I would like to show my humble accumulated print flotsam and jetsom (hence these pages), counterparts here in the UK, even if I could locate them, do not seem inclined to the sentiments of the Washington Print Club, whose members exhibitions shame my colleagues. Getting anyone here to admit they have any prints at all is hard enough, let alone what they have, or God forbid actually see them. The whole business appears to be surrounded in a Dickensian aura of competitive hoarding and secrecy. The insidious paranoia even clutched me when it came to revealing my links in these pages - everybody out there will buy all the prints from my carefully accumulated sources leaving none for me....aaargh!!
Well who cares. You can't have everything, even though sundry individuals and institutions seem set on squirrelling as much away in boxes out of sight as possible. Seeing and enjoying images gives just as much pleasure as owning them after all. You don't have to possess a work to appreciate the craft, art and toil that has gone into it - just a peep is often enough. Anyway, if it's not visible on the wall or elsewhere for constant pleasure of yourself and others then it's just a memory after all....no matter where it is. Guardianship of a work of art is a privilege that is transitory and easily abused, whether you have bought it or 'keep' it for the 'nation'. Maybe there ought to be a bit more humility and open-ness out there...
But you can't have anything I've got - they're all mine and I'm keeping them. You can have a quick glimpse now and again.. well, maybe.. but no touching....and I'm certainly not selling anything....well, not yet anyway...and don't think I'll be giving them to a museum....
no sir - it will be liquidation for cash.... for a damn good few years of riotous living, or a good wake and the rest going to a donkey sanctuary or something equally bizarre and scandalous.
Wot?, no Philanthropy ?? You've got to be kidding!! They're not sticking my stuff in a dusty dungeon for eternity. I'm intent on 'Environmentally Friendly Art' and intend to recycle mine so someone else can have the
dubious pleasure of owning it!
Photo Credits:
Cyrano is modelling the latest prosthetic proboscis crafted from a genuine French 'Baguette'.
Spectacle fixture is an optional extra.
(Courtesy of J.Maris. esq.)
Drop me a line if there is anything here that you profoundly disagree with, or maybe you would just like to point out my extreme ignorance and inadequate grasp of the subject.... I am not easily offended.
Gallery