The Society of Scottish Artists

The 2010 show of the Society of Scottish Artists at the Royal Scottish Academy includes work by staff from the Printmaking Department of the Wroclaw Academy of Fine Arts. These prints are a welcome introduction to a department which has grown into an important centre of printmaking in Poland.

The SSA has a long-standing tradition of inviting artists from around the world to show with us in our Annual Exhibition. By exhibiting these prints from Wroclaw in Edinburgh, the SSA continues this annual event of international artistic dialogue.

For a long time art colleges in Poland used to specialise in certain fields: Warsaw was well-known for graphic design, Kraków excelled in printmaking, Lodz in tapestry, while Wroclaw Art College made its name in ceramics and glass. The College was erected in 1946 as the State Higher School of Fine Arts on the foundations of the Prussian Royal Academy of Fine Art and Architecture, which became the German Royal Academy of Art in Breslau. The College was initially forbidden to refer to its artistic heritage, which dated back for centuries.

Printmaking, which was set up as a specialisation in the Glass Department and in 1967 became an independent Department of Graphic Art, had to start anew. In 1999 the current separate Department of Printmaking was established. During the early repressive years the intended meaning of the work often had to be covert. An emphasis on technical expertise provided a way to excel, while symbolism allowed for individual expression of the contemplative nature, which is characteristic to the work of many Polish artists.

The Printmaking Department in Wroclaw has over the years grown in importance. With its dedicated staff it has embraced new printmaking techniques, including digital printing, and continued to teach and develop the more traditional methods. The works now on show are an example of a drive for technical perfection combined with a strong narrative image, which still often alludes to symbolism. Nearly all these prints are monumental in size and include all major print techniques.

The masterful etchings of Jacek Szewczyk visualise the multi-layered experience of life in a modern city. The large, elegiac mezzotints of Christoper Nowicki show abandoned machinery as near poetic signifiers of a lost world. Agata Gertchen's lino cuts use the rhythmic shapes of the inside of a washing machine to deliniate a woman's private space, while Margorzata Etber Warlokowska's silkscreens are a moving allusion to the ambiguous status of production and reproduction. There is much to enjoy and admire in the work of the twelve members of the printmaking staff represented in this show. In 2011 selected members of the SSA will show their work in Wroclaw.

© Nan Mulder January 2010