Asked if it’s nerve-wracking to handle one-off prints that could be worth as much as £17,000 each, printmaker Peter Bennett cracks a grin. "The way to think of it is that you’re only dealing with a sheet of paper until a signature’s on it," he says. "Once a signature’s on it, yes, it’s worth an awful lot of money. But if you make a mistake beforehand – well, it’s just as easily a table-covering."
That’s a typical statement from Bennett, who is the official master printer of one at the world’s foremost modern art players, the Lazarides Galleries. He couldn’t fit the mould of the artisanal, artistic printmaker better if he tried. And if he tries at anything, it doesn’t show. Collected and softly spoken throughout our conversation, with an ink-stained tracksuit top and heavy work boots, he seems steeped in the steady, methodical – and undoubtedly hugely rewarding – process of printing artworks for some of the country’s best-known artists.
The man behind the Lazarides Galleries – and Bennett’s print operation – is influential contemporary art dealer Steve Lazarides who founded the Soho-based gallery in 2006 to exhibit street artists who wouldn’t get exposure elsewhere. It was an extraordinarily successful move and he soon expanded into another London gallery and one in Newcastle (both named The Outsiders). His fame mostly derives, though, from the work of his biggest export: Banksy, the graffiti artist reportedly worth over £13m.
Until 2009, The Lazarides Gallery produced an average of one print per month. The work was done in-house on a single screenbed in the pit of the Soho building. Since the expansion, that figure has grown to one print per week. The galleries needed their own facility. And that’s where Bennett’s studio came in.
The print facility is located in Wapping, east London, overlooking the Thames. The river billows past the open window. Until the 1800s, this stretch of the riverbank was known as Execution Dock. Pirates, smugglers and mutineers were routinely hung for their sins here. Nowadays, of course, the neighbourhood is rather less murky, prospering from the influx of cash and developments projects brought in by the Docklands redevelopment. The studio takes up two rooms on the second floor of the Metropolitan Wharf Building, a 19th century factory complex disused since the 1960s. Lazarides’ team moved here early 2011 and Bennett joined as master printer in October that year.
Respect the work
Lazarides is a self-made man and articles about him usually feature the words ‘ambitious’ and ‘uncompromising’. Interviews convey him as a tough character. You wouldn’t want to upset him – say, if you messed up a run of valuable prints.
Bennett laughs at that. "It’s not so much that Steve minds mistakes, I don’t think. Mistakes happen. It’s a part of life. We made some three-plate etchings for Ian Davenport that retailed at £17,000. Phenomenal. That was an instance where, if you make a mistake, it’s a real pain. But really, the thing that Steve can’t abide is carelessness and a lack of respect for the work. And that view is shared by myself and everybody else who works here."
Bennett took the academic route to The Lazarides/Outsiders studio. Having grown up in Limehouse, east London, he attended the University of Wolverhampton, where he studied Fine Art Printmaking. After returning to the capital for a post-graduate course in the same subject at Camberwell College of Arts, he found work at London-based printers K2 Screen and, later, Thumbprint Editions.
I asked if, with his fine art background, it isn’t sometimes galling to see artists receive acclaim and reward for work that, in fact, Bennett himself has created? "No, I don’t think that’s the case," he replies. "I just take an enormous amount of pleasure out of being able to work on these things. If I wasn’t here doing this, I certainly wouldn’t be producing my own artwork."
Bennett gestures at kaleidoscopic prints pinned to walls, at printers carving woodcuts and mixing inks. With its glossy floorboards and high white ceiling, the open plan of the studio itself demonstrates a flair for design. "And [the artists] are such diverse and interesting people that, really, just having anything to do with them is an experience in of itself. How often do you get to be in the studio with an artist and spend time with them painting? It’s fascinating. It’s fantastic. I enjoy it very much. I’ve got no complaints whatsoever."
He employs four full-time staff (three printers and an assistant), plus seven freelancers. Aged 30, his career has clearly moved pretty fast (in 2009 and 2010, he helped print Damien Hirst’s spot paintings). While he does not begrudge his lack of acknowledgement in creating other artist’s work, did he never consider channelling that energy in making art for himself as the next stage of an already illustrious career?
"No," he says, "I admitted to myself early on that I couldn’t create art. I had nothing to say. But I’ve always been interested in the creative side of printing. There’s quite a heavy history of art in my family. My uncle was a curator at the Tully House Museum in Carlisle and an artist in his own right, a painter. That’s probably why I enjoy the creativity of working with artists. When I found out there were places like this where you could be a craftsman and work with artists, I knew it was for me."
Hands-on advocate
And he is determined to help other people discover the printmaker within themselves, too. Despite taking the university route, he remains sceptical of the worth of a fine art printmaking degree to facilitate that, though.
"I don’t think universities offer enough guidance in terms of craft and making," he says. "I think with fine art printmaking courses at universities, there’s an element of gearing people towards painting to be a fine artist rather than a craftsman. Which is great – it’s wonderful to have all that background and understanding and knowledge of artists. But I am also a strong believer in craft and that if you’re not competent at your craft, your practise will fall down.
"Of course, there are places like this that can facilitate that craft, but I just feel the craftsmen are falling by the wayside. When there was more of a tradition of manual printmaking and labour intensive printing, people became naturally skilled as a result of their employment, as knowledge was passed on, but there’s less of that now. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, I guess. How much demand is there for a place like this? Few and far between."
Whatever the demand, Bennett is keen on the tradition of training up recruits and runs an internship scheme that emphasises hands-on experience. Interns pooled from art schools work one day a week for three months, with money paid for expenses. Those who display promise are invited back for a further three-month apprenticeship. Apprentices work four days a week for "just above" the minimum wage.
"They get very heavily involved," says Bennett, "Not only will you get paid for your work, but you’ll also get experience of working with a project. And also the problem with having people just for a day is that it’s very difficult to get involved in a project. It takes a long period of time. So, offering them the opportunity to work four days a week, it means they can start the project on a Monday and see that through. One day a week, it’s not always sufficient. You always end up giving them very necessary but mundane jobs like tearing paper."
Some will conclude from the initial three months that printmaking (or paper-tearing) is not for them. Bennett says there can be a disconnect between interns’ ambitions and the ambitions of the studio. "One of the difficult things you find with employment – and this goes for freelancers as well as interns – is that nine times out of 10, employees have alternate ambitions. They want to be illustrators or artists of painters, so when it comes to their commitment to the studio, there’s often a clash. They see it as a route to something else. Which is admirable, but not always effective for me."
Of course, the job requires bags of commitment. It’s technically a nine-to-five, but that rarely works out. Some artists send pieces for straight reproduction, though they’re outnumbered by those who spend days in the studio, nitpicking and improving works that Bennett’s team create by hand. Bennett says the street artists (such as Zeus and Xenz) don’t exactly keep office hours, although tighter work schedules are often maintained by the fine artists (like Antony Micallef and Jonathan Yeo) who also use the space.
The Lazarides/Outsiders studio produces woodcuts, screen prints and etchings. It houses a relief press, an etching press and three screenbeds. There’s no ‘typical run’, though – broadly speaking – an edition of 120 screen prints could take five days from start to finish, while an edition of 30 woodcuts may require 14 days. Almost every work is produced manually (even automated reproductions usually feature hand finishing). This time and effort means production costs are high. At the time of writing, Bennett’s team was working on a run of 30 woodcuts for artist Wolfe von Lenkiewicz (see box-out), which set the studio back £5,000. A simpler run of 120 screen prints would cost between £700 and £1,500 to make. With that all-important signature, though, a von Lenkiewicz woodcut retails at £1,500-£2,000. A Zeus screen print fetches £2,000.
Given those figures, it’s no surprise Bennett wants to expand his business. The studio falls under the Lazarides/Outsiders brand, but Bennett pays the rent himself. This is beginning to offer him a level of independence. Von Lenkiewicz is not a Lazarides artist. His woodcuts are the first works the studio has produced under its own steam. Bennett plans to rebrand the place as Execution Prints and take on more artists who work independently of Lazarides.
"We’ll put an Execution Print stamp on to say it was made here," Bennett says. "We’re going to start to take on more work of our own. So it’s kind of opening up the doors to become not just a studio for Lazarides, but an ‘editioning’ house. Wolfe is the first instance of that. Hopefully, he won’t be the last."
Making of Wolfe von Lenkiewicz’s Tulip Window woodcut
This run of 30 woodcuts took roughly 14 days, from ‘artworking’ (establishing how to achieve the print’s aesthetic) to the final ‘editioning’ (when the final run was readied for sale). Two printers produced the edition.
Bennett’s team photographed the original image supplied by von Lenkiewicz. They then separated the colours into different woodblocks. In this case, there were six blocks, each providing another layer of colour or detail (such as the spots, printed last). Printers then carved out each block by hand with traditional woodcarving tools. After approving each block, von Lenkiewicz chose his paper type (off-white, 365gsm).
The first ink layer was then ready to print. Registered in the etching press, the sheet was compressed onto an inked block. Once all the layers had been printed (a day elapses between each layer, so the ink can dry), von Lenkiewicz proofed the prints and marked up any changes he wanted made. These were applied and Bennett ran through 50 prints (the best 30 made the final edition). The whole process cost around £5,000 and an individual print will retail, says Bennett, at "£1,500-£2,000".
