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Print Commission from the Swiss Graphic Society

For its centenary the Swiss Graphic Society has asked London based artist Paul Coldwell for a special print concerning memory and visual transmission. Coldwell combines in his prints relief printmaking, as one of the oldest printing techniques, with contemporary approaches, such as laser-cut and photo-based imagery. Printmaking is a changing artistic medium, which always considered new technologies. Therefore the Swiss Graphic Society is glad that Paul Coldwell accepted this commission. Not reduced to just technical discussions, this approach encapsulate perfectly the aims of the Society. Since its foundation in 1918, it publishes every year two or three prints by contemporary artists and distributes them to its 125 members. Most of them are private collectors, beside a number of museums. The number of members are limited from the beginning and the members agree not to sell the prints as long as they adhere to the Society. The prints are not available on the open market and therefore excluded of any kind of speculation.

Although at the beginning concentrated on Swiss printmaking or printmaking linked to foreigners with strong links to Switzerland, such as Nolde, Klee or Kirchner, it opened the range slowly after WWII to develop a proper international program from the 1980s onwards. Since then two Swiss artists and a non-Swiss artist get commissions for prints or multiples. Over the past years many important Swiss and Non-Swiss artists contributed to the Society editions, such as Alberto Giacometti (1954), Jean Arp (1956), Dieter Roth (1973 and 1994), Jean Tinguely (1977), Markus Raetz (1977 and 1991), Eduardo Chillida (1979), Meret Oppenheim (1980), Martin Disler (1982 and 1990), Richard Paul Lohse (1982), Bernhard Luginbühl (1983), ar penck (1984), Mimmo Paladino (1984-1985), Georg Baselitz (1985), John M Armleder (1986), Enzo Cucchi (1988), Pat Steir (1993), Katharina Fritsch (1996), Rosemarie Trockel (1997), Lawrence Weiner (1998), Raymond Pettibon (2002), Fischli/Weiss (2004), Christian Marclay (2005), Peter Doig (2006), Atelier (Lucy McKenzie, Beca Lipscombe, Bernie Reid; in 2009), Christiane Baumgartner (2011), Alain Huck (2012), Mai-Thu Perret (2015), Wade Guyton (2017).

Coldwell will be making the print at Camberwell College of Arts, London and anticipates having the edition printed by mid 2018.

 

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