Visits + Visitors

Francois Lafranca
Some years ago I worked as a volunteer at the National Gallery of Australia cataloging their international print collection. The first works I cataloged were Ben Nicholson’s Greek and Turkish forms printed by Francois Lafranca in the 1960s. Part of the task was to find out background information about the making of the prints. In this case there was just one small paragraph about Lafranca and I started to wonder what he was like never expecting to one day meet him. He lives in a stunningly beautiful remote part of Switzerland in the Italian canton of Ticino. Once he made gigantic sculptures as well as prints and paper but now his concentration is on paper making.




Georgio Upiglio
I was introduced to this delightful old man by Bruno Leti. In one of the images he is holding a photo I sent him of Bruno. Now in his eighties Georgio was one of the master printers printing for Miro, Man Ray, Giacometti, Fontana, Duchamp, De Chirico, the list goes on as you can see by the boxes of editions lining the walls of his Milan studio.



Atelier de Saint-Prex
Painter and Printmaker Pietro Sarto lives and works in the beautiful lakeside village of Saint-Prex between Nyon and Lausanne. He and fellow master printer have a very hands-on approach to printing. Sarto often works with several colours on the one plate creating extraordinary atmospheric colours and tones.



Tom Petsinis, Bruno Leti, Helene George & Judy Holding
Tom came to Switzerland on a writers residency during which he started his latest novel Fog.
Here he is admiring the press at atelier GE Grave which is a French version of the Stanhope press. Lord Stanhope studies mathematics at the University of Geneva.
The Martin Bodmer Foundation fascinates all visitors. It’s a unique collection of manuscripts, rare books and objects relating to civilisations through writing. www.fondationbodmer.org





Australia
Every year usually in March and April I come back to Australia to see family and friends,
do some printing and a lot of eating.

Lewis Editions printing a Margaret Olly and Dianne Fogwell's studio


Deborah Klein, Kristin Headlam and Bruno Leti in their studios


Judy Holding in her studio and Gria Shead outside her flat


food as art

Artist Diary

Budapest May 2010 The last trip was looking up admiring the architecture and Budapest’s past, this trip was looking down looking at life as it is now. In the back streets behind the Opera House are several clever local fashion designers. Time Out Budapest published monthly has worthwhile articles as well as what’s on information.

Bronze plaques can been seen in the pavements outside the buildings where Jewish members were deported. Irresistible chocolate cake


Street art -No to the fascist party Jobbik and Party!


Art and Life. Images of the homeless made into digital prints.



Belgrade May 2010 I left Belgrade 19 March 1999 having lived there for almost 2 year. NATO’s bombing of Serbia started 24 March and lasted till 11 June. The buildings still bare the gaping wounds of this bombardment. The smart public galleries that had once showed art with such an edge now displayed religious and nationalist nonsense. Film festivals are dynamic and flourishing.
Interesting artist / graphic designer Mirko Ilic http://willsherwood.com/?p=650

1. Yugoslavian Army General Headquarters building damaged during NATO bombing 2. One of the works Confrontation which I did during the bombing. 3. Victory over the Ottoman Empire. Most of northern Serbia from Subotica to Zeman, just across the river from Belgrade was part
of the Austo-Hungarian Empire.


French Embassy


1.Gallery Graphic Collective established in 1949 2. Stencil artist


Geneva April –May 2010 / Art By Genève
Atelier GE Grave where I have been making my prints over the past 5 years took part in this International Art Fair providing demonstrations and information. www.ateliergegrave.ch


Lausanne April 2010 / Ateliers portes ouvertes
Every two to three years cities open their studio doors for the weekend inviting the public to come and take a look. My adventure on Sunday 18 April started at the side of the railway yards where a group of artists had transformed a grot of a building into a presentable space far more exciting than most galleries. Then various studios in backstreets of the city centre. More coffee, more cakes ending in the hilly suburbs looking across Lake Leman in the studio of Eliane Gervasoni whose embossed prints are as crisp as her view of the French alps.

1. Woodblock by Cristian Valenzuela 2. Installation by Louise Mestrallet 3. Eliane Gervasoni in her studio


Budapest February 2010 During the late 1990’s when I roamed that part of the world I visited Budapest several times, once spending a month there after being evacuated from Belgrade. The visits were not that pleasant, nor the Hungarians emerging from their post communist life. Crime was rife and taking a taxis and the metro made you vulnerable. Even the wonderful Gellet Baths felt oppressive. The women attendants gave the impression that they would be far more comfortable working in a detention centre than a place for healing and comfort. But in the last 12 years all that has changed and the younger generation has bought new life and vitality to the city, best noted at the Open Society Archives with the University of Europe with its film centre and gallery.

House of Terror www.houseofterror.hu
This museum opened in 2002 at 60 Andrassy, a beautiful building on the most beautiful boulevard in Budapest but deep into the building is a history of fear and death. It was occupied first by Fascists (The Arrow Cross Party) and then the Communists (Stalin’s era) who used the building as their government's secret police up to the 1956 Hungarian uprising. The museum confronts these two regimes of terror with items that remain imaginative installation works of art whilst documenting a tragic past. Definitely worth visiting especially for those of us who grew up during the Cold War period and who knew the odd “New Australia” from Eastern Europe but what did we really understand about this period in our life time.

The Arrow Cross rule was short-lived and brutal killing both Hungarians and Jews. After the war, Szálasi and other Arrow Cross leaders were tried as war criminals by Soviet courts.

In 2006 a former high ranking member of the Arrow Cross party named Lajos Polgár was found to be living in Melbourne. Polgar was accused of war crimes, but the case was later dropped and Polgár died soon after. (Wikipedia)

Also of interest are the two films made in 2006, Children of Glory (Hungary) and Freedom’s Fury (USA). The films follow the 1956 Melbourne Olympics with the Hungarian water polo team playing against Russia against the background of the1956 Hungarian Uprising, using archival footage and modern recreations.

And for your amusement the film Gloomy Sunday set in pre-World War II Budapest.
A Jewish restaurant owner, a hired pianist and a German customer are all in love with Ilona the waitress. The song Gloomy Sunday – (also known as the Hungarian suicide song and recorded by Billy Holliday and Sinead O’Connor) becomes the restaurant's signature song.

Monument of Shoes on the Danube Promenade, created by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay, is a memorial to Budapest Jews shot by the Arrow Cross during the final months of World War II.
Tree of Life, Jewish Museum, commemorates the 5,000 victims of the Holocaust buried nearby.


The Art Deco Gellért Spa Bath located in the Gellert Hotel are open for the general public
to enjoy the sulphurous healing waters for rheumatic and asthmatic complaints.
Look at artist Tacita Dean Gellért 1998, 16 mm film.

House of Hungarian Art Nouveau
The café / museum opened in 2007 at 3 Honved ut near Szabadsag Square. Originally designed by the architect Emil Vidor for Béla Bedö whose name appears on the façade so it’s often referred to as Bedö-Ház. The collection provides an intimate glimpse of life in Budapest during the early 20th Century when Art Nouveau (Szecesszió) had a strong and important influence on the city. There are many brilliant examples of Art Nouveau architecture, Villa Sipeki Balazs by Ödön Lechner is one that I just happened to pass.

There are several walking tours which would cover most of the architectural sites but aimlessly wandering around finding all the quirky is also fun.

Alexander book shop, Art Nouveau café and museum Béla Bedö and Villa Sipeki Balzsa


Morocco January 2010 Artist heaven. And the first stunning work of art to hit you by surprise is Marrakech airport. Flooded in light from solar panels it combines stylised
Islamic motifs etched into the glass walls with dynamic 21 century architecture making it
a very pleasing visual experience both from inside and outside the building.

Marrakech airport exterior and interior



From Marrakech to Fes. We stayed in the Dar Roumana, beautifully restored to function
as a small hotel. In many ways it was similar to place we stayed in Syria. Jennifer Smith
our host and the manager started out in investment banking, then became a cordon bleu cook. Fes was both comfortable and adventurous as it was delightful to return to a roaring fire
and tea after wet, muddy streets. The rooms smelt heavenly and all the breakfast jams were locally made. Fes and Marrakesh railway stations are brilliant architecturally and the first class train was cheap and cheerful.
Hotel Rar Roumana http://www.darroumana.com/english.htm
Click on "rooms and rates" and go to the top and click on "virtual tour".

Other than luxuriating in the hotel admiring the architecture and brilliant tile work we roamed the backstreets of Fes taking in its many colourful aspect of craftsmen, spices, teas and the creativity of these political posters – due to illiteracy each party is represented by a drawing.

Political party posters


Rome December 2009 The restaurant for artists, Canova Tadolini-via del Babuino 150 A-B was the studio of the Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova and later his pupil Amamo Tadolini. Close by are the artists’ studios in via Margutta. Many now turned into smart galleries.

Freck and Vanessa Vreeland at Café Canova Tadolini
Vanessa in the back streets of Rome next to a 1st century mosaic


Fredrick and Vanessa Vreeland the authors of Key to Rome, the most brilliant guide book ever written with delightful tips and titillating information.
Think of the Eye Witness series but with charming writing and filled with exquisite images. It’s written layer by layer of Rome – Ancient, Christian, Renaissance and Baroque.

Rome is the city of Bernini. Note BBC series Power of Art / Bernini by Simon Schama, also the episode on Caravaggio being the year to mark the 400th year since his death.




Galerie Artraction Geneva December 2009
Woodblock prints 1.Inertia 2. In Extremis 3.Elysium


Bristol September 2009 / IMPACT The last IMPACT Print Conference was hosted by the Centre for Fine Print Research and the Faculty of Creative Arts, the University of the West of England, Bristol from Wednesday 16 September to Saturday 19 September. This was the first of the 6 IMPACT conferences I’d been to but there were several familiar faces from the conference held in Cortona – Print Odyssey 2001. Julie Barratt the director of Barratt Galleries presented her paper on Artists’ Books in Australia. www.barrattgalleries.com.au Tim Mosely from Silverwattle Press & Southern Cross University Australia and Matthew Perkins from the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University presented papers. Jan Davis presented the Australian exhibition, Stories of our Making: Contemporary Prints from Australia.
IMPACT 7 will be hosted by the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University, Melbourne from 27-30 September 2011. www.impact7.org.au

Open Print exhibition


Australian exhibit and screenprints by Samuel Tupou


Australian artist Danielle Creenaune who has been working in Barcelona. See IMPRINT volume 44 www.daniellecreenaune.com

Cyprus September 2009 Collected my exhibition held at Gallery K in March and had time out from making art.
90 year old candle maker and fun in the sun George


Saint Petersburg August 2009 What can I say – Hermitage, Hermitage, Hermitage! For someone who admires gilding this was spectacular. But treasures of a different kind can be found in the Russian Press Museum and the Russian Printing Museum.

Russian Press Museum and the Russian Printing Museum