Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition
To celebrate its 20th birthday, and to recognise Alan Cristea's significant contribution to print publishing, we are staging a special 20th Anniversary Exhibition. Unbeknownst to Alan himself, we asked 21 of our artists to make a print in an edition of 40 for an anniversary portfolio.
The artists are Gillian Ayres, Christiane Baumgartner, Gordon Cheung, Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport, Edmund de Waal, Jan Dibbets, Jim Dine, Marie Harnett, Howard Hodgkin, Ben Johnson, Allen Jones, Langlands & Bell, Ian McKeever, Julian Opie, Mimmo Paladino, Lisa Ruyter, Joe Tilson, Paul Winstanley, Richard Woods and Catherine Yass.
The prints cover a wide range of techniques including woodcut, etching, screenprinting, lithography and carborundum relief. We gave the artists no specific brief beyond a size limitation, and whereas some, such as Jim Dine and Julian Opie, chose to refer specifically to Alan, others were slightly more oblique in their reference, such as Michael Craig-Martin's Ashtray, 2014. All profits from the sale of the portfolios will be donated to the Greenhouse Charity and to Cancer Research UK. Portfolios have also been given to the British Museum, London, and an, as yet, unnamed American Museum.
Alongside the 20th Anniversary Portfolio, the gallery will present an exhibition surveying its highlights from the past 20 years by late artists, both from the gallery's collection and Alan's personal collection, including Patrick Caulfield, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso and Dieter Roth, as well as prints by Josef Albers, Henri Matisse and Georges Braque. These works have been selected by Alan who worked with many of these artists over the past few decades, some before he established his gallery on Cork Street in 1995.
The 20th Anniversary Portfolio will be displayed in 34 Cork Street, and the display of highlights from the past 20 years will be at 31 Cork Street.