Anita Klein

We've had the pleasure of working with the very talented printmaker Anita Klein for over 35 years and her wonderful prints have featured in many of our shows from our 40 year archive including her Solo Print Exhibition Back to Life in 1997, Treasured Moments Print Exhibition which in 2012 celebrated our 30th anniversary and Master Printmakers Print Exhibition which celebrated our 35th anniversary in 2017.  Anita studied at Chelsea and the Slade schools of art.  She is a fellow and past president of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (RE) and her work is in many private and public collections in Europe, the USA and Australia, including Arts Council England and the British Museum.  She divides her time between studios in London and Anghiari, Italy.   Anita’s work celebrates the small domestic moments we all share.  She says that these everyday events are what she would miss most "if it was all taken away."  While family photo albums record our lives as one long round of birthdays and holidays, the very moments we should most value are almost always ignored and forgotten.  Anita’s prints are often used as sketches for large oil and acrylic paintings which are exhibited regularly in London and elsewhere by Eames Fine Art and Advanced Graphics London.

​

“The lovely people at Leeds Craft Centre have exhibited and sold my prints since I left The Slade many many years ago.  They always choose the best of my work and are a pleasure to deal with.”

 

Trevor Price 

Trevor is a firm favourite with our visitors having showcased his remarkable printmaking with us for most of his career.  Shows he has been featured in during our 40 year history include a Solo Print Exhibition back in 2007, Treasured Moments Print Exhibition in 2012 celebrating our 30th anniversary and Master Printmakers Print Exhibition which celebrated our 35th anniversary in 2017.  Trevor specialises in drypoints and relief prints.  He shares his time between a studio close to Tower Bridge in London, and the other in the heart of the artist community of St. Ives in Cornwall.  He studied at Falmouth and Winchester Schools of Art and at the age of 28 was elected a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.  His work is held in various collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), Guangdong Museum of Art (China), Yale University (USA) and The Bank of England.  He has won several national printmaking awards with the most recent being the Printmaking Today Award at the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers 2017 exhibition.  Trevor's artworks usually represent the intimacy between a couple, sometimes romantic, sometimes erotic and often humorous.   Location is a big influence in the work, and his Cornish roots often feature.

​

“It's always a great privilege to be involved in an exhibition at the Craft Centre Leeds.  Craft is not always given the recognition it deserves in our contemporary art world, but I see the role of the master craftsman/woman as fundamental.  Thank you to the Craft Centre for promoting excellence in craft over the past forty years.  I've been making prints now for almost 40 years, and still feel like there's a lot to learn!”

 

Flotsam Prints (Megan Hall)

Megan is a new printmaker to the gallery and one we’re very excited to be working with for this special anniversary exhibition.  Her linocut designs come from her interactions with water.  She is heavily inspired by her wild swimming adventures and the things she sees and hears within the community.  Occasionally Megan deviates from this source of inspiration as she loves seeing nature in all its glory; “if I witness a particularly pretty sunset, spend a day in a friends potting shed or go out walking with one of my many four legged friends then I may create a print based on that experience but it’s not something I tend to revisit – swimming, on the other hand, is.  I owe everything to the water.  It is my endless source of inspiration, and I can’t see that ever ending.  Hopefully my prints will inspire others to dip a toe in.” 

​

"It was such an honour to be invited to exhibit with Craft Centre Leeds as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations.  It’s such a beautiful, contemporary space with strong roots in the creative community nationally.  I look forward to continuing to work with them".

 

Simon Tozer 

This is the first exhibition Simon’s inspiring printmaking has been featured in, but he has had work in our print browsers since 2018.  We are delighted to be able to showcase some of his remarkable works never seen before in the gallery for this anniversary exhibition.  “My screen prints draw on influences from popular art and children’s illustration and is often humorous.  I try to illustrate human desire and fear, our strengths and frailty, often through the representation of animals but also through machines, cars and ships.  I find that making pictures is rarely straightforward.  It is a process of reaching for thoughts and feelings that sit at the back of the mind.  Most of my pictures are created as screen print.  In screen printing each picture is created in layers as a series of separate drawings onto film. The layers are then transferred onto the screen using a chemical process, which is then hand printed as a stencil one colour at a time.  Like other traditional print techniques, the process affects how the image is conceived, and encourages a way of working that is economical in form and colour."

​

“The centre invited me to exhibit my prints about four years ago, and l have had some work with them ever since.  It was a real honour to be invited to exhibit as part of the 40th Anniversary.  What l love about the Craft Centre, and the brilliant people who look after it is that they radiate positivity!  Sometimes l question the value of my work, as many artists and craftspeople do, but l always feel boosted and valued after any Craft Centre communications.  Forty years and still going strong is an achievement to be celebrated, and a well-deserved celebration!”