Loading Events

A Fantastical Animal Alphabet

Sat 5 October 2013, 11.00amSun 15 December 2013, 5.00pm

A Fantastical Animal Alphabet
This exhibition accompanies Curious Beasts: Animal Prints from the British Museum and draws inspiration from Enid Marx’s (Marco) Animal Alphabet creating A Fantastical Animal Alphabet of new original prints.Marco’s Animal Alphabet, as it has become affectionately known, was first printed in 1979 and subsequently published as a book in 2000.  The prints from the series are brought together for the first time in years as Compton Verney’s very own collection is married with the works held by Pallant House to mark the recent re-display of Marx’s Collection at Compton Verney. Highlights to the alphabet include O for Owl and R for rhino, the later providing an interesting comparison to Dürer’s rhino also on display.

 

 
A Fantastical Animal Alphabet takes the exhibition Curious Beasts: Animal Prints from the British Museum and Marco’s linocuts as inspiration to present newly commissioned work by artists Kate Da’Casto, Gemma Wright, Sarah Kirby, Sally Hill, Alison D’Oyley, Peter Clayton, Sat Kalsi, Deborah Hopson-Wolpe, Soraya Smithson from Leicester Print Workshop, the centre for printmaking in the Midlands.  Utilising a range of fine art printmaking techniques: linocut, screenprinting, lithography, etching, letterpress, artists will produce a new animal alphabet of fantastical animals both real and imagined.  Each of the newly commissioned letters of the alphabet will be on display and hand-printed in a limited edition run of three, which make a rare gift or extra special Christmas present.  These will be on sale in the shop at Compton Verney.
Award winning printer, Kate Da’Casto, from Leicester Print Workshop will be Compton Verney’s artist-in-residence for the duration of the exhibition.  Located in a pop-up studio in the gallery, she will be sketching and preparing new work as well as talking about and demonstrating various printmaking techniques to visitors.  Kate says “I love printmaking, it provides the artists with a magical box of tools and I look forward to sharing my experiences and enthusiasm with Compton Verney’s visitors.  By doing so, I hope to add to their understanding of printmaking and their enjoyment of both exhibitions. On a personal level I know that my time amongst these wonderful works will inspire me to create a new body of prints, I can’t wait to see what unfolds.” Find out more. On selected days Kate Da’Casto will be inspiring visitors to the exhibition to get hands on and create their own prints in her Monoprinting and Drypoint Etching workshops.

Visitors to the exhibition will also get the chance to make their own unusual alphabet animal in our exhibition activity area.

A Fantastical Animal Alphabet is presented by Compton Verney in collaboration with Leicester Print Workshop.