McGuinness (Norah)

a signed copy of no.4 in the first series of ten Contemporary Lithographs, a pioneering project to make original art available to the masses, either as affordable art for the home or for display in schools and other public institutions. It was the combined brainchild of the young manager of the Zwemmer Gallery, Robert Wellington, the passionate educationalist, Henry Morris, the artist, John Piper, in particular amongst a circle of young contemporary artists, mostly from the Royal College of Art, and the specialist printers, Oliver Simon and Harold Curwen, of the Curwen Press. Unlike the high quality reproduction prints that Wellington had hitherto been selling at Zwemmer’s as a way of disseminating mainly continental modern art, these prints were auto-lithographs, created by the artists’ own hands as original multiples. Norah McGuiness (1901-1980), was an acclaimed Irish artist, exhibiting in New York and London as well as Dublin. She had got to know Wellington by participating in his mixed shows of contemporry artists at Zwemmer’s.

colour-printed auto-lithograph, 520 x 790 mm. (20 1/2 x 31 in), signed in pencil, lower right, repaired tears into the upper left image, a few other short repaired tears and attendant minor handling creases at sheet edges, [Artmonsky 4],