Written on behalf of the PMC Committee by Clare Grossman & Jacki Baxter

Our member’s exhibition at Linden Hall Studio in Deal, Kent was our first exhibition in 2017 and was titled ‘The Latest Edition’. This proved to be a particularly successful exhibition in terms of sales and the gallery space was bright, light and modern. It was very well received by visitors to the venue and proved ideal for this summer printmaking exhibition.

Our large double exhibition in the Winter of 2017 was held at the Morley Gallery in London and consisted of both an open submission of ‘Mini Prints’ from our membership plus an additional exhibition of urban inspired printmaking, titled ‘PrintCity’. On show were over 170 artist prints in this spacious venue. The Pmc were delighted that the V&A Museum were taking a boxed set of the miniprints which included over 100 artists prints. The set is to be held in their archive and Word & Image departments for perpetuity. The Printmakers Council decided to purchase a whole new collection of mini print frames which added to the stunning effect on the wall of so many beautiful examples of contemporary printmaking. The PrintCity section of the exhibition contained a wide variety of printmaking techniques of both 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional works from the traditional to the most modern of techniques.
We were especially delighted to be able to offer our members a range of prestigious prizes at this particular venue which included our Printmakers Council Prize together with a host of others: a Printmaking Today Prize, a London Print Studio Prize, a John Purcell Prize, a St Bride Foundation Prize and a St Cuthberts Mill Prize. We were very grateful to all the support received by these unique organisations.

In December, the Committee held a thank you supper in honour of our Chairman Margaret Ashman who was stepping down at this time after many years of service as first a committee member and in recent years as the Chairman of the Pmc. The dinner was held at the Villa Bianca in Hampstead and included both present and past members of the committee who had worked with Margaret. It was an opportunity to thank her for her unrelenting enthusiasm, her can do approach to every aspect of running the Pmc and her tireless all-encompassing work which has meant that the PMC now enjoys a position of greater strength and relevance today.

Our aims for the Printmakers Council in 2018 were to provide additional value to our membership in other ways in addition to our exhibition opportunities. It was decided by the committee in January 2018 that the PMC would offer these additional events over the course of the coming year:
Victoria & Albert Museum to the ‘Prints & Drawing Room Visits’. The first of these was held on 29th January. The theme of the prints on show to us that day was ‘Urban Images’, in response to our recent Printcity exhibition at the Morley Gallery. Later in February we held our second visit to the V&A, this time the collection of prints chosen for our members to view was themed ‘Land, Sea & Sky’ acting as a prelude to our  forthcoming member’s exhibition of the same title, to be held at the Late November Gallery early next year.
Our third visit was the ‘Mychael Barratt Studio Talk’, at his Bermondsey print studio in April, and trip to the St Brides Foundation, held just last week, was the fourth and final visit that we had arranged for this year. All four trips were extremely well attended and feedback from the members who signed up for the various visits was very positive indeed. These visits aimed to offer insights into the varied areas and workings of the print world.

In addition to these events, we invited a member who had been on one of the trips to write a short essay about their experience. This together with photographic evidence was published under the title ‘An Artist’s View’, via our mailchimp email system and also featured on our website for each of these four trips.

The PMC also offered for the first time an Artist Residency. An open submission was sent out to all members and funding was offered to one successful artist which enabled two week access to the facilities at London Print Studios in North London, together with a bursary for art materials and travel.

Our forthcoming exhibition titled ‘Memory’ opens at the end of August at the Royal Overseas League headquarters in Mayfair. The Printmakers Council have been specially invited by the organisers of ROSL’s exhibition programme to show at their central London headquarters for an extensive period of over two months. Our exhibition is to coincide with the centenary commemorations of the ending of the First World War at ROSL and their planned programme of cultural events. A private View is to be held at the opening of the exhibition and an additional event is to be arranged for members which will combine the elements of both music and the visual arts.
Our new online submissions page and link has taken us the committee, many months to finalise and it is now live and being used by our membership for the very first time for our ROSL exhibition. The PMC is now very much part of the 21st Century!

Future dates: following a very successful donation of prints by our members to the Scarborough Museum Archives two years ago. The Pmc are going to offer another opportunity for members to donate an artist print to their collection. Margaret Ashman has kindly agreed to work with Michael Kennedy and the committee with the task of organising this for the autumn months.

The PMC have two exhibitions lined up for 2019. The first with the Late November Gallery in Pembrokeshire, titled ‘Land, Sea and Sky’ and the second, later in the year, will be with the Ropewalk Gallery in North Lincolnshire.
Finally, we are very happy to have officially invited both Glynis Owen and Tammy MacKay to join the Pmc committee and warmly thank them for their support. We are also delighted that Jane Daniell has just joined the committee for a trial period of three months and has already shown her IT skills to be invaluable, assisting us greatly with the ROSL submissions.

It is now time to offer a very big thank you to Bonny Young our Treasurer, for all her patience and perseverance in matters financial over this past year. A thank you also to Theresa Pateman for organising our booking with the Late November Gallery next year and for all her other help and assistance with matters both small and large. To Margaret Ashman for being there to help whenever we couldn’t find something and for approaching the Ropewalk Gallery which will be our autumn exhibition next year. To Bronwen Paterson for her willingness to Mailchimp at a moment’s notice, amongst her other valuable skills and a thank you to Nicola Styan, Michael Kennedy, Angela Brookes, Steve Mumberson and Ros Morley for all their time and assistance with the varied and multiple tasks involved in running this historic printmaking organisation. It is no mean feat. Your continual and regular support throughout the year has been very much appreciated. Thank you.