Paul Catherall Pallant House Gallery Print

4 Colour lino print (38cm x 28cm)

Signed and numbered by the artist rom an edition of 250.

Paul Catherall’s prints contain a healthy acknowledgment of the past. Posters of the 1930s and 1940s and William Nicholson are all influences but the images, partly due to their resolutely modern subject matter, never sink into nostalgia. Using a traditional print media need not lead to mimicry or sentimentality.

For his print, which was created to celebrate the opening of the new Pallant House Gallery in 2006, Catherall decided to focus on where the two buildings meet, surely the biggest challenge of the project, with a print that could be interpreted as an abstract design. Perhaps appropriately for a print of a building that has been the subject of intense discussion and dispute, the previous buildings Catherall has focussed on have themselves been subject to a split in opinion: the Southbank, the Trellick Tower and the ‘Gherkin’ have all divided opinion and no doubt will continue to do so. If anything, Catherall’s prints are an advocation of bold contemporary design, remembering that even St Paul’s Cathedral was contemporary once.