A short account of an afternoon at the Prints and Drawings Study Room, V&A by Emma Buckmaster
16th May 2016
On 16th May I was lucky enough to join a group of PMC members on a visit to the
V&A Print Room, organised by Dawn Cole.
Gill Saunders, who is the Senior Curator of Prints at the V&A, kindly spent the
afternoon with us explaining how the collection is curated and managed. As well as a
comprehensive collection of historic prints, the V&A is an active collector of
contemporary print and prides itself on buying or acquiring prints at publication and
often early in the artists career. Gill is very much in touch with the contemporary
print market and attends all the major print shows as well as the graduate shows.
The V&A offer a prize at the International Art Biennale and the winners work is added to
the collection. Gill is also a judge of the Koestler Trust Exhibition Awards .
As well as talking to us about her role at the V&A, Gill had put on display for us of a
selection of recently acquired prints. She then told us about the artists and how she
had come across their work. These included some very familiar names such as Paula
Regio but also some recent graduates and other artists whom most of us had not heard
of. The work was very varied and interesting.
