NORMAN ACKROYD

Each year, for decades, Norman Ackroyd RA has produced a collection of etchings focused on a particular area of the British Isles. In 2017 however, prompted by flicking through earlier watercolour notebooks, he decided to revisit some favourite places to compare the images distilled in those watercolours, distilled too by time in his prodigious visual memory, with the "current actuality". The result is Here and There, a set of ten etchings, including images of the wild seas off Caithness and St Kilda, the calm sea around the Isle of Pabbay in the Hebrides, St McDara's Island off Connemara and others of the Irish coast from Co. Mayo, Co. Galway, Co. Clare and Co. Kerry, of his birth county, Yorkshire and of St Cwyfan's, known as "the Church in the Sea" off Anglesey.

In 2018, Norman Ackroyd, at 80, has chosen to interleave the twelve etchings of this year's set, Fragments, with his favourite poems which, together with familiar pieces of music, often come to him while working en plein air and help the struggle to refine the work to Auden's "concinnity and elegance". Earlier etchings are revisited with a tougher approach, with more use of the black sugarlift technique than the hazy greys of aquatint. As ever, in addition to the two boxed sets, from which the the etchings are also available singly, there are several separate etchings and watercolours.

Norman Ackroyd, born 1938, studied at Leeds College of Art (1956–61) and the Royal College of Art, London (1961-64). He was elected Royal Academician in 1988, Professor of Etching at the University of Arts in 1994 and elected Senior Fellow, Royal College of Art in 2000. He was awarded a CBE for Services to Engraving and Printing in 2007.

His work has been acquired for numerous public collections including: Albertina Museum, Vienna; Art Institute of Chicago; Arts Council of Great Britain; British Council; British Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard; Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; National Gallery of Canada; National Gallery of Norway; National Gallery of Scotland; National Gallery of South Africa; Queensland Art Gallery; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam;The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle; Stedelijk, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; Utah Museum of Fine Art.
Between 1986 and 2010 he has produced nine large etched steel murals for prestigious buildings.