Name

Crossley Print Workshop.

Culture

Australian

Type

Organisation

Start date

1973

Start place

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia View on map Close map

End date

1975

End place

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia View on map Close map

Occupations

Print workshop

Summary

Located: Australia (VIC).

NGA IRN

13944

Context

Australia

Biography

In 1973 the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council was established, and Tate Adams and George Baldessin applied for a Direct Assistance Grant to purchase a large lithographic press for their new Crossley Print Workshop. They were successful, and the Workshop was set up in the Winfield Building in Collins Street, Melbourne, directly below Baldessin’s studio. It was officially opened by Ursula Hoff in October 1974. The Workshop occupied an entire floor of the building with plenty of space for presses and workspaces; its ambience was heightened by the close proximity of other artists’ studios.

 John Olsen, who Adams regarded as Australia’s greatest lithographic artist, produced key works at the studio, including his exuberant colour lithograph Aquarium 1973. Others whose work was editioned included Albert Tucker, Tim Storrier and Fred Williams. Also in the Crossley group was Melbourne painter Roger Kemp who had a studio in the Winfield Building. Adams commissioned Kemp’s large-scale etching Relativity 1972 which was originally created to form part of the Crossley Editions 40/40 prints portfolio. Due to its large size it was printed on the Baldessin studio press. When Kemp exhibited his prints at Crossley Gallery in September–October 1972, the works were praised by Patrick McCaughey, art critic for the Age:

'Kemp’s debut as a printmaker is astonishingly distinguished. At the first stroke he has established himself as a major asset in Australian print making … Kemp has not simply translated his powerful painterly plasticity into prints. He has reconceived his whole enterprise as an artist in terms of the etching medium.' [Age, 27 September 1972, p. 2]

By mid-1975 John Robinson was head printer at Crossley Print Workshop but in March–April 1976 the workshop had to vacate Winfield Building which was scheduled for demolition and redevelopment. This took place while Baldessin was overseas; he had left for São Paulo and Paris in September 1975 and did not return to Australia until February 1977. The Crossley Print Workshop was not re-established.

[Roger Butler, Printed images by Australian artists 1942-2020, Canberra: NGA, 2021].