Australian collectors now draw confidence from works in a series - they want Arthur Boyd's Brides and Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly Heads - and are coming to terms with prints as "original" works of art
The world's premier print-collecting institution, the British Museum, is to mount a survey of Australian print making.
Acquisitions by the museum over the past 20 years mean that modern and contemporary Australian print makers are now being ranked alongside the great masters - Durer, Rembrandt, Hogarth and Goya.
Contained in the same type of solander folders that house the works of the great masters, some of the Australian holdings in the museum's print rooms are being brought out of the closet and contextualised, although selected Australian prints have occasionally been shown in the past.
Australian print makers are scrambling to be represented at the august institution, although the BM does not expect to have to pay for most of its acquisitions. Contemporary artists and their dealers tend to be sufficiently flattered about inclusion in the holdings of the BM Print Room to donate works.
One of the most comprehensive holdings is that of Fred Williams, donated by his widow Lyn. The BM also acquired 37 works on paper - the province of the print department - by Albert Tucker, from the artist's widow Margaret. Lady Mary Nolan has also been helpful in respect of her late husband's work.
The BM's assistant keeper, prints and drawings, Stephen Coppel (curating the exhibition) has spent the past two weeks in Australia under the auspices of the Gordon Darling Foundation, looking at work with a view to acquisition.
In his position, "assistant" keeper does not necessarily mean subordinate. It means his brief is the period from 1880 to the present day.
He handled the BM's acquisition of the print bequest of (London) Evening Standard film critic Alexander Walker, who died in 2003. The artists represented include most of the greats of post-1960 art, such as Jasper Johns, Jim Dine, Josef Albers and Philip Guston from the US; Lucian Freud, Bridget Riley, David Hockney and Howard Hodgkin from the UK; and from the school of Paris, Picasso, Matisse and Miro .
Coppel, an Australian, partly credits being in his current position to the years he worked for the National Gallery of Australia, which has an outstanding international print collection, the result of its acquisition of the archive of the Gemini Print Workshop in Los Angeles and the Felix Mann collection of lithography when the gallery director was James Mollison.
Being an Australian in London (since 1992) has also helped Coppel in terms of finds, such as an important overlooked print by Australian Jessie Traill.
The coming Australian print survey, however, simply follows an established agenda which provides for a run of exhibitions along geographical lines. These began in 1997 with an American survey. Next year the BM will mount a modern Italian show.
Coppel believes Australia has contributed substantially to world print making, through its interpretation of landscape and absorption of overseas activity.
Supporting a lively local print-making scene are workshops and editioning houses such as Australian Print Workshop (APW) and Port Jackson Press, both Melbourne-based; Sydney's biannual works on paper fair; and Australian Galleries' "Works on Paper" galleries.
The APW, which has published work by a range of Australian artists, from William Robinson to Judy Watson, presented a cross-section of its work to the BM in 1996-97.
After the etching boom of the 1920s, which saw the rise in international esteem of Lionel Lindsay (he had an exhibition at then London print gallery Colnagi's), Australians tended to be elitist in their approach to prints. Confusing them with reproductions, post-World War II collectors eschewed original prints because (apart from the rarely done monotypes) they were not unique. Art was one way of differentiating oneself from the hoi polloi in the colonies, but having a print from an edition that could sometimes run into hundreds gave the buyer little distinction.
However, Australian collectors now draw confidence from works in a series - they want Arthur Boyd's Brides and Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly Heads - and are coming to terms with prints as "original" works of art, even if the keenest market tends to be reserved for modern facsimiles of Norman Lindsay's works and commercially reproduced modern cricket prints.
They are more easily commoditised - a great plus in an art market that is investment- rather than collector-based - for unlike unique works of art, they are virtually identical and their prices can be accurately compared and even charted.
Art brokers have marketed print packages. One enterprising operator rents prints to offices so that, unlike investment wine accounts, they are earning and therefore can be identified.
The Australian prints which will be able to hold critical esteem are the works of those artists, not necessarily big names, who successfully took up the challenge and exploited their particular print medium, be it etching, lithograph or screen print.
However, these may not be the works which will increase hugely in value. Prices of woodcut artist Margaret Preston's works are closer to the value associated with one-off works because of her enormous contribution to Australian art. At a Deutscher-Menzies auction in Sydney last December, her woodcut The Pink Jug set a record for an Australian print (if the Australian-American Martin Lewis is ignored) when it was knocked down for $40,800.
However, lack of availability and big premiums attached to the quality work of established artists like Brett Whiteley, John Olsen and Sidney Nolan make prints attractive to even well-heeled buyers. A $20,000 screenprint by Nolan is the only way most collectors can secure that icon of Australian art - a Kelly head - because of price and availability, as even second- and third-period Nolan Kellys reach the mid six-figure dollar mark.
The best auction price for the work of a serious Australian print maker - Williams - is only $7360.