- Museum number
- 1985,0504.27
- Title
- Object: Figures in settings and sculptural ideas
- Description
-
Groups of figures with reclining nude woman, anthropomorphic shapes below; trial proof before addition of colour plates in grey and sepia. 1951
Collograph
- Production date
- 1951
- Dimensions
-
Height: 261 millimetres
-
Width: 369 millimetres (sheet)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Frances Carey & Antony Griffiths, 'Avant-Garde British Printmaking 1914-1960', BMP 1990, no.131.
Shortly after the execution of his lithograph for School Prints, Moore experimented with the related technique of 'collograph' printing at the Ganymed Press; this was founded in London in 1949 with the benefit of some of the equipment and expertise salvaged from the ruins of its Berlin namesake, formerly one of the leading firms of collotype printers in Europe. Ganymed had previously printed a collotype fascimile of Moore's famous Shelter drawing of 1941, 'Pink and Green Sleepers' (Tate Gallery), and he was clearly intrigued by the possibility of recreating the textural effects of his 'wax-resist' method of water-colour drawing. A letter from Ganymed Press to Peter Gregory of Lund Humphries on 15 November 1949 elucidates the procedure as follows:
"We are sending to Bedford Square [the Lund Humphries office] a roll containing a number of sheets of Kodatrace and a small bottle of ox-gall and a bottle of non-waterproof black ink. Will you send this material on to Henry Moore and ask him to draw freely upon any area up to 30" x 30". If he likes to do more than one, say a half dozen attempts, we will transfer his drawings to collotype plates and provide proofs. From this experiment I think we should learn a great deal. Apply the wash by means of a brush, or alternatively, he can draw with black pen and ink in the ordinary way. If he does pen and ink, he may not necessarily need the ox-gall added, but the only purpose is to overcome the grease on the surface of the paper and cause the ink to flow. Finally, of course, draw on the matt side. He might care to sign the drawings as a mark of authenticity".
The technique described here therefore involved drawing in separation on plastic sheets, as in the 'Plastocowell' process, but with the difference that the image in this case was transferred photographically to a glass plate covered with light-sensitive gelatine, which hardens in proportion to the transmitted light. The printing method then used was that of a collotype (i.e. directly from the gelatine which holds ink in proportion to its hardness), not a lithograph.
The first experiments from which emerged the rare proof catalogued in Carey & Griffiths 1990 were completed by the beginning of 1950, and the original drawings on Kodatrace returned to the artist. But it was not until 15 August 1951 that Gregory recorded that "two of the prints can be almost proceeded with straightaway, and I have sent Henry Moore away today after a good lunch with another supply of transparent paper and with the determination to get on with his part of the work. I think it will be all through in a fortnight." In the event, three subjects were published in editions of 75. The prospectus advertising them in 1951 listed them as 'Figures in Settings' at 12 guineas (CGM5), 'Woman Holding Cat' at 10 guineas (CGM10), and 'Standing Figures' at 10 guineas (CGM 9); a fourth subject was mentioned as being in preparation.
The term 'collograph' was invented by Bernhard Baer, the manager of the Ganymed printing works from 1950, in order to distinguish these autographic prints from the conventional reproductive collotype process. In a letter of 6 September 1951 to Gregory, Baer asked that the word 'plates' should be substituted for 'negatives' in the sentence referring to the destruction of the originals: "I feel it would be preferable not to draw attention to the fact that photography is involved in the production." Copies of each of the published collographs were sold to Curt Valentin of the Buchholz Gallery in New York, which had been handling Moore's drawings since the early 1940s.
Since the editions sold very slowly, the fourth projected print was never published, and the process never used again. Much later in the 1970s, Moore did however draw on his experience with the Ganymed collographs and the 'Plastocowell' process to develop a new variety of lithograph known as diazo lithographs. These were also drawn on translucent plastic film, but not in separation, and transferred to the plates by exposure to ultra-violet light.
In 1985 Mr and Mrs Baer presented this and a number of other collographs by Moore to the British Museum, including three proofs of 'Two Standing Figures with Studies on the Left' (CGM 17, where it is quite wrongly described as a lithograph printed by W.S.Cowell). Bernhard Baer (1905-83) met his wife Ann Sidgwick through Ganymed. In 1960, when the collotype business was failing, the Baers formed a separate company, Ganymed Editions, to publish original prints. They began with the 'Leda Suite' of lithographs by Sidney Nolan in 1961, and until 1979. when the firm was taken over by the Medici Society, they published a distinguished range of work, including that of Arthur Boyd and Brett Whiteley, Kokoschka, Ben Nicholson and Moore (his 'Stonehenge Portfolio' of 1973). (An account of the firm is given in 'Ganymed, Printing, Publishing, Design', the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1981; the Ganymed archive was presented by Mrs Baer to the V&A, where can be found copies of the letters quoted here.)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1990/1 Sep-Jan, BM, 'Avant-Garde British Printmaking 1914-1960, no.131
1991/2 Nov-Jan, Middlesborough AG, Avant-Garde British Printmaking
1992 Feb-April, Plymouth City Mus & AG, Avant-Garde British Printmaking
1992 May-June, Glasgow, Hunterian AG, Avant-Garde British Printmaking
1992 Oct-Dec, Manchester, Whitworth AG, Avant-Garde British Printmaking
- Acquisition date
- 1985
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1985,0504.27