![Missing image](https://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/static/images/placeholder/w540h540.png)
© copyright The Artist
UNTITLED 1989
Ken Currie (1960 – )
Details
- Dimension
- 28.8 X 25 CM
- Media
- LINOCUT
- Accession number
- P5654
Summary
This work comes for the portfolio Story From Glasgow; the final portfolio comprised 97 black and white linocuts printed over a six month period by Simon King in Cumbria, in an edition of 50. The prints are based on a chance meeting the artist had with a ‘down and out’ man, who told the artist his life history from being a skilled worker and trade union organiser, he turned to drink after the sudden death of his much loved wife and lost his home and his job ending up leading a squalid life on the streets of Glasgow where Currie met him. The prints were quickly made on lino – the drawing painted on with black gouache before softening the lino over a bar-fire to cut the design. Each work, from start to finish, took about an hour and half to do; the artist wanted the works to be direct and raw, any that became too calculated were rejected.
Further reading:
Contemporary Art in Print, Scottish National Gallery of Modern and The Paragon Press, 1995, texts by Jeremy Lewison, Duncan Macmillan and Patrick Elliott
Glossary
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Design
The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.
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Drawing
The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.
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Edition
All copies of a book, print, portfolio, sculpture, etc., issued or produced at one time or from a single set of type. Printed works can be made in an edition of between one and many thousands of copies. With most printing techniques the plate or screen will become worn if very many prints are made, so to maintain quality (and exclusivity) editions of original prints are usually kept below one hundred copies and normally average between thirty and fifty copies. Prints made up of several different plates can be extremely complicated and time-consuming to edition, so in these cases editions are kept low for practical reasons. Sculptural editions are a set of cast sculptures taken from the same mould or master. These editions are usually much lower, consisting of no more than six casts. Though each cast in an edition might have a lower value than a unique piece, it may be a more effective way of offsetting costs of an expensive process such as bronze casting.
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Gouache
A paint composed of water-soluble pigment, which has been ground in gum, usually gum Arabic, like watercolour, but made opaque with the addition of white pigment. Creates effects similar to those of oil paint, but lightens in colour during drying and cracks if used thickly.
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Portfolio
A set of pictures (as drawings, photographs or prints) either bound in book form or loose in a folder. These can be by the same artist or individual works by a selection of artists. The term also refers to the folder which holds the set.