Ian Tyson - Utamaro Variations

Ian Tyson, British b.1933.

The complete suite of five woodcuts on handmade Japan, each signed and dated in pencil, contained within the bound folio with text by Adam Crozier and woodcut prints in colours on 300gsm Somerset by Ian Tyson, signed by the author and artist and inscribed AP in pencil to the colophon, a proof aside from the edition of 60, published by Tetrad Press, London, overall 25.5 x 19cm (folio) (ARR) Note: see British Council, Visual Arts Collection, accession no. P3117, for similar example.

Ian Tyson was born in Wallasey Cheshire, who studied at Birkenhead School of Art and Royal Academy Schools. He founded Tetrad Press in 1970 and organised and wrote the catalogue for the show British Artists’ Books 1970–83 with Silvie Turner. Was awarded a Brinkley Fellowship at Norwich School of Art, 1979–80. Group shows included Norwegian Print Biennale, 1980; Printmaking: Four Observations, Newcastle Polytechnic Gallery, 1982; and UEA Collection, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, 1983. Later solo shows included Bookworks, 1985, and Flowers East, 1994, where Tyson showed paintings and relief constructions based on a simple frame-like motif. There was another at Avivson Gallery, Paris, in 1998. WAC, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Gallery and many other public collections worldwide hold examples.