Billingsgate Fish Market

By Edward Bawden

Lithograph after linocut – unmounted, unframed.

Image size: 710mm x 550mm

Edition size: 225

Please note Unlike the majority of prints featured here this print is unsigned.

This lithograph of the key plate of Billingsgate Fish Market taken from the original lino block has recently been printed at The Curwen Studio in agreement with the Edward Bawden Estate.

The origins of this print

Edward Bawden CBE RA was commissioned to produce a series of six London market limited editions by Herbert Simon, Managing Director of the Curwen Press, in 1967 to be printed by the Curwen Studio, then based just off Tottenham Court Road in London. The Curwen Press had engaged Bawden to work for them on many projects from the early 1920s onwards, producing a wide range of images for advertisements, book-jackets, wallpapers and pattern-papers.

In 2009 the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery (who hold the major collection of Bawden’s work) approached the Curwen Studio to film for their archive a demonstration of how Bawden’s lino cuts were transformed into lithographs. Bawden favoured the technique of relief printing on lino due to the tactile nature of ‘cutting’ a block and the final textural qualities that lino blocks create. This print, taken from the original block cut by Bawden, has been reproduced in the same manner as the original limited edition prints in 1967 to explain the process used for historical interest. Permission has been granted from the Edward Bawden Estate and a percentage of sales will be given to the Estate.

The printing process

Once the block has been completed it is then rolled up with greasy ink and printed onto a special transfer film. The film is then placed face down onto a lithographic zinc plate and run through a direct press, which transfers the greasy ink to the zinc plate. The image on the plate is processed with chemicals to secure the image on the surface for printing. The process of lithography relies on the repellent nature of grease and water: so when a roller with greasy ink is applied to a wet plate the ink only sticks to the image, this is then printable lithographically. This process of damping and inking is required for each sheet printed.

Originally ‘Billingsgate Fish Market’ would have been printed with a further five colours, this means that another five lino blocks would have been cut by Bawden and then transferred in the above method.

This image is an example of printing of the ‘key’ block and shows clearly how the transfer into a lithographic image has retained faithfully Bawden’s hand cut lino block.