Prints Please! The Countess of Rosslyn On Love For The Art Form of Printmaking As London Print Fair Turns 40 This Week

The fair’s director tells George V Magazine what to shop and where to take inspiration from at the event hosted at Somerset House

A chance to own part of art history on a more manageable level than having to put up the paddle at Sotheby’s every week.

One such esteemed pillar of London’s thriving print scene is the Countess of Rosslyn. ‘Prints are accessible to a lot more people, and they are not reproductions,’ she emphasises. ‘Artists will work with a publisher to make an edition. It means the price point is so much better. You can buy a really big David Hockney print for maybe £100,000, but a painting would be millions.’

Rosslyn, who cut her teeth in the print department at Christie’s is now celebrating her very own sky-high achievement: 40 years of the London Original Print Fair (where she has been Director for 38 of those annums). ‘There are a lot of artists who love print making more than paint almost, because it is a really technical process’, says Rosslyn. From a historical standpoint, those early days at the auction house-institution is what initially sparked the fire for her love of the process. ‘I suddenly realised from Dürer making woodcuts and engravings that he was making them so that ordinary people could buy them,’ she shares. ‘That’s the way that the images got out to the wider public, because a painting is locked away in a church or a palace, and I think that’s what I’ve always loved about prints,’ she surmises. Rosslyn also put her impressive decades-spanning career into print itself with the The Buyer’s Guide To Prints, published back in 2018.

On the 20th March, the London Original Print Fair returns to Somerset House. Formerly hosted at the Royal Academy of Arts, the towering Thames-overlooking landmark has been home to the fair for the past four years. ‘It’s beautiful. It’s [hosted] around the courtyard, and in fact, funnily enough, it was the first home of the Royal Academy of Arts,’ Rosslyn shares. As to what you’ll see this year, expect old faithfuls – Matise, Rembrandt and Basquiat – while modern-day tastemakers like David Wrigley and Tom Hammick are busy working on special commissions. Hammick has even created a bespoke woodcut to toast the event’s anniversary, Somerset House’s proud facade now washed with splashes of lush forest green and burnt orange hues.

Her top tips for first-time buyers? ‘I think a fair is a good place to buy because you get to meet a whole load of dealers. The first thing to do is to find something that you aesthetically like. You’ve got to love it, because you’ve got to have it on your wall. And I don’t think buying purely for investment is advisable,’ says Rosslyn. ‘Once you’ve singled out a style you like, make sure you like the dealer. I’ve met a lot of collectors who come back to the same dealer again and again, because they both know each other, and the dealer will look out for things that they know a collector will like, or they’ll let them know if a new edition comes up. I think finding somebody who can guide you through it is one of the strengths of the fair,’ she confirms.