Master Printer Hugh Stoneman (1947-2005), was renowned for his unique collaborations with national and international artists. A passionate and highly skilled practitioner, he worked alongside painters, photographers and sculptors to ensure that through the particular qualities of the print process, their work found new meaning between image and material. 

Celebrating a career spanning four decades, Master Printer revisits some of Stoneman's key projects. From the perspective of the print studio, it showcases his ability to work with a wide range of artists, encompassing a variety of expressive styles and ideas.

Before setting up Stoneman Graphics in Madron, West Cornwall in 1995, Stoneman had established several print studios from the early 1970s in London, initially to provide open access facilities for the local artist community. Trained as an artist at Camberwell School of Art, his determination to introduce new artists to the potential of fine art printmaking led him to rediscover photogravure processes: he took this method to a new level with artists as diverse as Eve Arnold, Hamish Fulton and later George Shaw.

With a growing reputation for commissions and publishing, Stoneman achieved an impressive track record, working with major British figures including Ian McKeever, Terry Frost, Eileen Cooper and Grayson Perry, as well as some significant European and Middle-Eastern figures such as Arturo Di Stefano, César Galicia and the Estate of Iraqi politician, Kamil Chadirji.

To accompany the Hugh Stoneman: Master Printer exhibition we have a special display of prints by Terry Frost (1915-2003) and Breon O’Casey (b 1928) made with Stoneman at his studio in Madron, near Penzance. Contemporary prints have been an integral part of both artists work and the relationship with Stoneman was crucial to enabling their ideas to work through the medium of print.

In this first room, Breon O'Casey's vibrant linocuts contrast with his signature carborundum prints of birds. In the adjacent room, the large multi-part woodcut, Orchard Tambourine, by Terry Frost spans the architectural curve above the stairs. Working with Stoneman from the late 1980s these colour-saturated works, were built on the theme of variation, were one of the artist's major achievements in contemporary print.