Jonny Hannah – Clocking In: An Exhibition of the Working Day – Signed Limited-Edition Screenprint 96/100 – The Higgins Bedford – 2010

Description

A highly decorative and historically well-documented original screenprint by Jonny Hannah, designed in 2010 for Clocking In: An Exhibition of the Working Day at the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, now The Higgins Bedford.

The print measures 36.6 × 54.3 cm and is signed and dated 2010 by Jonny Hannah in pencil, together with the edition number 96/100. The lower margin also carries the printed Cakes & Ale Press imprint.

Hannah’s design transforms the conventional exhibition poster into a dense piece of visual storytelling. The central title:

CLOCKING IN

is rendered in characteristically exuberant hand-drawn lettering in red, yellow, black and white, surrounded by a collage of images associated with working life: clocks, bottles, machinery, tools, shop counters, office equipment, industrial objects and documentary photographs.

Beneath the title appears:

“AN EXHIBITION OF THE WORKING DAY”

together with the original exhibition dates:

27 FEBRUARY – 23 MAY 2010

and the venue:

BEDFORD GALLERY, CASTLE LANE, BEDFORD

with the names of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum incorporated into the design.

This is not simply a later decorative print using exhibition graphics. Contemporary records from The Higgins Bedford confirm that Jonny Hannah was specifically commissioned to produce this design for the Clocking In exhibition, and that original signed screenprints were being sold through the gallery while the exhibition was running.

The Clocking In Exhibition

The exhibition explored the history and experience of the working day, drawing together material relating to employment, industry, commerce, labour, technology and everyday working life.

Hannah’s design is particularly apt because his work has long drawn heavily on the vernacular visual language of ordinary life: hand-painted shop signs, commercial lettering, printed ephemera, packaging, folk graphics and the visual residue of Britain’s workplaces and high streets.

The Higgins Bedford’s contemporary blog records that Hannah was asked to create the artwork following earlier collaborations surrounding its Edward Bawden exhibition. The institution described the resulting image as a design specifically produced for Clocking In.

Typography and Visual Language

The screenprint is an excellent example of the qualities for which Hannah is particularly well known.

His professional biography describes a practice encompassing paintings, drawings, screenprints and linocuts, with a particular fascination for nineteenth-century typefaces and the written word.

Here, lettering is not simply informative but central to the composition. The bold CLOCKING IN title borrows from circus bills, vintage advertising, signwriting and industrial typography, while smaller text, pointing hands, decorative borders and photographic fragments build up the impression of a surviving piece of mid-century commercial ephemera.

The work also reflects Hannah’s recurring interest in what might be called urban folk culture: the design traditions produced not by fine-art institutions but by workplaces, shops, tradesmen, factories and everyday commerce. His current representation specifically identifies this interest in “urban folk” and the beauty of modern working life.

Cakes & Ale Press

The lower margin carries the imprint of Hannah’s Cakes & Ale Press, his personal cottage-industry publishing and printmaking enterprise.

The combination of institutional commission, small edition and Cakes & Ale Press production makes Clocking In particularly representative of Hannah’s practice.

Edition

This example is:

96/100

from an edition of only 100 impressions.

Artist

Jonny Hannah was born in Dunfermline, studied illustration at Liverpool Art School and the Royal College of Art, and has worked professionally since graduating in 1996. His practice spans illustration, painting, screenprinting, linocut, hand lettering and artist-published ephemera. He won a BAFTA in 2000 for his animated film The Man With The Beautiful Eyes.

His distinctive mixture of typography, folk art, jazz, popular culture, vintage graphics and imagined vernacular environments has made his work immediately recognisable.

Condition

Very good to excellent condition overall.

The colours remain strong and fresh, particularly the red, ochre-yellow, black and blue-grey printing.

There may be very slight handling or natural paper irregularity consistent with an unframed screenprint of this size and age, but no significant defect is apparent from the supplied photographs.

The pencil signature, date and edition number 96/100 remain clear and legible.

Please study the photographs carefully as they form an integral part of the description.

Artist: Jonny Hannah
Title: Clocking In
Full exhibition title: Clocking In: An Exhibition of the Working Day
Date: 2010
Medium: Original colour screenprint
Edition: 96/100
Signed: Yes, in pencil
Dated: 2010 in pencil
Publisher / printer: Cakes & Ale Press
Commissioning institution: Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum
Exhibition dates: 27 February – 23 May 2010
Size: 36.6 × 54.3 cm
Format: Original limited-edition exhibition screenprint
Unframed: Yes

Authenticity

This print has been handled, inspected and catalogued in-house at Hornseys.

Its status is supported by the pencil signature, date and edition number, the printed Cakes & Ale Press imprint and contemporary records from The Higgins Bedford confirming that Jonny Hannah was commissioned to produce the design for the 2010 Clocking In exhibition.

It is an original signed screenprint from the edition of 100, not a later reproduction poster.

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