Curwen Print Study Centre in Great Thurlow, near Haverhill, hosting an exhibition of artworks by King Charles III
Great Thurlow is hosting an exhibition of rare landscape lithographs by King Charles III.
Curwen Print Study Centre, which moved last year to a village near Haverhill, is exhibiting its first curated exhibition since the move. It will be on display until November 17.
Curwen Studio created the works when His Majesty’s name was still Prince Charles.
Landscapes include royal residences, beloved British countryside scenes and images from the Prince’s travels further afield.
Lorraine Chitson, director of the centre, said: “Queen Victoria was famously a talented watercolourist, and her three x great grandson King Charles has long continued the tradition in the royal family.
“This free archive exhibition explores the landscapes made by the Prince under the guidance of the late Master Printer Stanley Jones MBE in the 1990s and early 2000s.
“Each image was carefully separated into layers under the supervision of the Prince, then colours were custom mixed and layered to create highly skilled lithographic printed editions.
“Proofs went back and forth from the studio to the Prince for approval until the final image was right.
“The sale of these works went on to raise millions for the Prince’s Trust and other charities.
“Supporting archive material which has never exhibited before is also on display, revealing how and why the prints were made including the Prince’s own specially fabricated watermarked paper.
Prince Charles has endorsed Curwen Print Studies Centre founded by Mr Jones in 2000 as a charitable educational institution where anyone of any age can learn techniques for fine art prints.
Originally, the centre was located in Chilford Hall (near Linton). The centre was originally located in Chilford Hall, near Linton.
Stanley Jones was the inaugural master printer at Curwen Studio from 1958 and has been an influential figure in the development of artist’s printmaking in Britain until his recent passing in 2023.
After receiving a travel grant, he learned the Atelier print style in Paris.
He returned to England in the late 1950s at the request of Robert Erskine, who was creating a print studio for artist’s editions.
The Curwen Studio became the leading print studio in Britain, one of the first ‘open access’ studios available for artists to create original prints with the help from an on-site, technically-expert printmaker.
The pinnacle of 20th-century artists’ prints.
The Curwen archives at the Print Study Centre contain over 700 lithographs, by artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Also included are John Piper, Paula Rego Edward Bawden Ceri Riches, David Hockney, Barbara Hepworth Elisabeth Frink.
The Print Study Centre launched a successful campaign to raise funds in 2022, with the Art Fund, for the cataloguing of the archive.
This important resource, which is a valuable resource for researchers and artists, needs to be catalogued and further researched.
There is a permanent display of a selection of archive works which is open to anyone to view during the Print Study Centre’s opening hours.
