Breon O'Casey and Hugh Stoneman: Process, Production, Prints

'A print is a print, and I like to keep them simple. Picasso loved experimenting with different combinations of methods for his linocuts; whereas Mattisse’s linocuts are white lines on black, his etchings black lines on white; the simplest possible method. I side with Matisse.

For my linocuts, my tool is a pair of scissors, I cut shapes from the lino and stick them on a board. Each shape can then be linked separately. If some shapes are close together, I cut the board up and, after inking separately, put together the pieces on the press, like a child’s jigsaw.

Most of my prints are either linocuts or carborundum prints. Carborundum prints are a sort of poor man’s etching process. When dry, the whole plate is inked up (like an etching) and then wiped clean. Where you have painted with carborundum the ink is held. And this is your image. If you want to add colours you place a same size sheet of plastic over the first one and you can see easily where to put your colours.

At least as much effort goes into a print as a painting. The only difference is that they can be sold for less money.'

Breon O’Casey, 2005

‘O’Casey had been making linocuts since the sixties, when master printer Hugh Stoneman moved his press from London to Orchard Flower Farm a few miles away in the early 1990s, O’Casey began a regular collaboration with him. Stoneman who had trained with Stanley William Hayter in Paris was an enabler, producing prints of high technical accomplishment through experimental partnerships with his artists, crucially allowing O’Casey to make trials with linocut, etching and carborundum.

Three years after Stoneman’s death in 2005. Tate St Ives commemorated him with the show Hugh Stoneman, Master Printer which included a group of prints made by Terry Frost and O’Casey at his studio in Madron, near Penzance.’

Words by Ruth Guilding, from the publication Breon O’Casey Retrospective

Image: Hugh Stoneman photographed by his wife, Linda Stoneman in his Print Studio in Islington before his move to Cornwall.