Edinburgh Print­makers has been at the heart of the capital’s art scene for four decades, providing access to its workshop for emerging and es­t­ab­l­ished artists alike, and raising the profile of the print in its gallery space. To mark the an­n­iver­sary, the Print­makers is set to mount an ambitious pair of ex­hib­i­tions, setting out the in­sti­tu­tion’s history and surveying work from the past 40 years.

The workshop and gallery opened its doors in 1967 on Victoria Street, set up by gallerist Robert Cox and artist Phil Reeves, along with founding members Roy Wood and Kim Kempshall. For Gill Tyson, vice-chair of the Print­makers’ council, whose in­volve­ment with the project dates back to her days as an art student in the 1970s, the timing was right.

“It really grew out of that re­sur­gence of print­mak­ing in the 1950s,” she says, “when print­mak­ing began to move into the fine art de­part­ment at the art colleges. Then it came down to the fact that there was a lot going on in Edinburgh at the time - there was a strong artistic revival and a strong al­ter­n­at­ive artistic community, artists such as John Bellany and Sandy Moffat were coming out and keen to continue with print­mak­ing.”

After a stint at Victoria Street, in a cramped room adjacent to Robert Cox’s gallery, the Print­makers moved to Market Street in 1975, then, as now, a hub for artistic activity in the city.

“Victoria Street was, really, entirely un­suit­able as premises for a print workshop,” Tyson remembers, “so the chance to move to Market Street was a great op­por­tun­ity. We were right above the Fruit­mar­ket Gallery, and next door to the New 57 Gallery, which was an in­cred­ibly lively place.’ When the Fruit­mar­ket was made in­de­pend­ent of the Scottish Arts Council in 1983, Edinburgh Print­makers was forced to up sticks once more, finding, after a difficult search, its current premises in a former wash house on Union Street - Tyson, by then chair, was the first to enter the main hall. This move to a larger space led to expansion, with the Print­makers’ pub­l­ish­ing more artists’ editions, and col­l­ab­or­at­ing with non-print­mak­ing artists as well as making its fa­cil­it­ies available to members.

The twin gallery spaces also allowed the Print­makers to continue its com­mit­ment to bringing print­mak­ing to a wider audience.

“As well as providing the fa­cil­it­ies for artists to make prints,” Tyson explains, “a lot of our work has been about promoting print­mak­ing. And I think we’ve done pretty well at that - we certainly have an in­ter­n­a­tion­al re­pu­ta­tion.’ That re­pu­ta­tion also applies to Scotland as a whole, with workshops across the country opening in the wake of the Edinburgh Print­makers’ early success.

“Now we have Edinburgh Print­makers, Glasgow Print Studio, Peacock in Aberdeen and the workshop in Dundee,” Tyson explains. “Print­mak­ing is a really strong strand to the visual arts in Scotland. It’s de­f­in­itely something peculiar to Scotland - of course you get print workshops in other places, but to have so many open-access print workshops here? I see that as something of a Scottish success story.”

The first ex­hib­i­tion cel­e­b­rat­ing Edinburgh Print­makers’ part in that success story focuses on the first 20 years of its output, aiming both to showcase work made by artists in the workshop, or in col­l­ab­or­a­tion with it, and to document the or­gan­isa­tion’s history.

“There wasn’t an awful lot in the workshop in terms of archive materials,” says Tyson, “so we had to get in touch with a lot of people who had been involved over the years. It was amazing the warmth and affection they all had for the in­sti­tu­tion, and we were faced with this deluge of cards, editions and pho­to­graphs.”

Some of those materials have been put to use in a short film to be screened in the gallery throug­hout the ex­hib­i­tion.

“For the film, I in­ter­viewed Philip Reeve and Roy Wood, the founder members, and Alfons Bytautas, whose been our etching tech­n­i­ci­an since 1974,” Tyson says.

“They told all their old war stories. It’s really re­mark­able to hear how they did so much, how they made all these in­ter­n­a­tion­al con­nec­tions, even though there were so few of them.’ Then, of course, there are the prints, by artists including Peter Howson and Stephen Conroy, alongside work by the founding members. “We went for the good ones!”, Tyson jokes, ex­plain­ing the process of whittling down 40 years’ worth of work into a man­age­able show. “We really wanted a spread of things that would show what was happening at the time in print­mak­ing, and to have works that re­p­res­en­ted shows we’d had over the years, as well as a mix of prints by print­makers and by artists working in col­l­ab­or­a­tion with the workshop.’ 40 Years at Edinburgh Print­makers should, then, be an in­triguing exhibit, offering a chance to trace trends, to survey the work of a wide-ranging and disparate group of artists, and, perhaps best of all, fully to un­der­stand the role of this Edinburgh in­sti­tu­tion, the first open-access print workshop in the UK, in driving forward the practice of print­mak­ing.

This review was first published in The Herald on January 9th, 2007.