School Prints - Year 1
In the first year, 293 pupils and 103 school staff from Wakefield participated in the School Prints.
An exhibition of all the 1940s prints, together with the six newly commissioned prints, was held at The Hepworth Wakefield 12 Jan – 24 Jun 2018. A special display of the contemporary prints was held at Phillips throughout January 2018.
10 ‘art ambassadors’ chosen from Year 9 pupils at Cathedral Academy took part in a series of workshops with local print maker, Helen Peyton and creative writer, Rose Condo. During these sessions, the art ambassadors produced creative writing responses to the contemporary prints which went on display at the gallery, and devised workshops for Year 5 students from five Wakefield primary schools with the aim of getting them excited about art. Students then supported local artists to deliver creative workshops at the primary schools.
Friends and family were invited to a final exhibition at the gallery celebrate the students’ achievements.
With funding from #iwill we worked with the art ambassadors to launch an Art SOS campaign to raise awareness of the importance of creative education, with lots of people contributing their first art memory on social media using #ArtSOS
Simon Wallis, Director of The Hepworth Wakefield, said: ‘In September 2017, it was announced that the number of pupils taking arts subjects at GCSE had fallen to the lowest level in a decade. Creativity is being squeezed out of increasingly pressurised school timetables and we know there are schools in our district that simply cannot afford to bring classes to experience the art on display here, even though entrance to the gallery is free. Museums and galleries have a crucial role to play in addressing this devaluing of creativity in the education of our children.’
An Introduction to School Prints
Work with Wakefield students on School Prints
Commissioned Artists
Anthea Hamilton, Daydreamer's Wavy Boot
£500, edition of 85.
‘Perhaps this is a self-portrait of me as a young girl? The shiny leg of the boot, neat and wavy like the long black plaits I wore every day. The grown-up high heel made of bricks is the Victorian school building we surreptitiously carved our names into the walls of with little stones from the playground floor.’ Anthea Hamilton
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Martin Creed, Work No. 2874
£500, edition of 85
‘I like broccoli. It’s my favourite vegetable. I eat broccoli every day. I like prints made from broccoli because they look like pictures of trees, and I like trees. But I don’t know what colours I like, so I thought I could try a mixture of different colours.’ Martin Creed
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Haroon Mirza, Photons and Friends
£500, edition of 85
‘My print is a homage to that idea and particularly to the work of Garrett Lisi, who created the complex and elegant piece of geometry that aims to map all the known fundamental particles along with possible undiscovered ones. A variation of this pattern is depicted alongside a trompe l’œil image of a photovoltaic panel – a modern device capable of converting photons to energy.’ Haroon Mirza
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Jeremy Deller, The Problem with Humans
£500, edition of 85
‘I’ve always felt that contemporary art is much better suited to children than it is to adults. My print is almost like an illustration from a book. It’s meant to make little kids smile.’ Jeremy Deller
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Helen Marten, Untitled
£500, edition of 85
‘The body and its movement through the various volumes of daily space has long been a starting point for artists through history. In this lithograph, the primary lines construct a huddled group of figures, morphing through one another in a manner that could describe an embrace, but also the metaphoric dissolution of one form into many.’ Helen Marten
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Rose Wylie, King John, Frog
£500, edition of 85
‘I like frogs, there don’t seem to be a lot about any more. This image was triggered by a television programme on King John, who was not popularly considered a ‘good’ king at the time. The story has it that some monks decided to get rid of him by extracting poison from a frog, disguising it in wine and offering it to a travel-worn king.’ Rose Wylie
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