The Printed Image

This joint exhibition brings together the work of two printmakers, a father and daughter.

Kenneth Craddock (1911 – 1989) and Adrienne Craddock. Kenneth’s wood engravings and Adrienne’s monoprints.

Both artists attended Manchester School of Art – (Manchester Metropolitan University) and each specialised in printmaking. The landscape of Herefordshire features in the work of each artist.

Kenneth Craddock

Born in Bolton in 1911, the youngest of six children, he first attended Bolton School of Art, then Manchester School of Art.

Kenneth was Principal of Hereford College of Art throughout the 1960s after working for a number of years as an illustrator for the Manchester Guardian. During World War two Kenneth worked for the aircraft company De Havilland as a designer drawing plans. He also designed information posters during the war and worked for a number of years as an illustrator for the Manchester Guardian.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of Manchester Academy. He has work in Manchester City Art Gallery’s. He exhibited in the Royal Academy summer exhibitions.

Influenced and inspired by Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden his paintings and wood engravings recall the nineteen fifties.

After numerous visits to Herefordshire where he stayed at a farmhouse in the countryside near Leominster, he fell in love with the county and applied for the post of Principal of Hereford College of Art in 1951.

The architecture and landscape of rural Herefordshire often feature in his work. A fine example is the wood engraving of the fourteenth century former drovers inn “The Rhydspence ” which is situated on the Welsh border in the Wye Valley, near Hay-on-Wye.

Adrienne Craddock

Currently living in Herefordshire where she combines teaching with producing limited edition hand painted original prints, Adrienne uses a variety of printmaking processes including collagraph, monoprinting and carborundum to create her richly textured, bold and narrative works.

Stories, rhymes and fables have inspired her work and she has collaborated on a series of national touring exhibitions.

‘…Her beautiful hand-coloured prints invite you into an imaginary world of miraculous happenings where the extraordinary and incredible are treated as familiar and everyday.’ John Sheeran

A Statement by Adrienne Craddock about her work.

 I was lucky enough to be brought up in the countryside, an environment that is ingrained in my soul.
As a teenager however, I couldn’t wait to leave home, to get away and into a city – to explore my northern family roots, life, people and music.
First I went to Stoke on Trent to do a degree in printmaking 1982-86 and was taught by several fine tutors who encouraged an experimental approach to printmaking. From here I went on to do an MA fine art degree in Manchester 1987 -89 It was a 2 year part time degree and enabled me at the same time to work part time as ‘Artist in school’ for Wigan education authority.
It was here in the classroom with the children that inspired much of my art work. I was, as Picasso said, trying to learn to ‘paint like a child’. Expression without the confines of formality.
Around this time I also thought it best to explore ‘what I knew’ and this is when I began to use animal imagery combined with narrative from stories or rhymes.
I was making work using simple printmaking techniques – collagraph and drypoint (because my studio was in a school) and working on small editions. These works were quite large scale so took a lot of time to print an edition and to hand colour.
My most recent work explores the technique of Monoprinting. More akin to painting as these are ‘one off’s’ not editions although it’s possible to make several versions.
I am enjoying this painterly, looser and less graphic approach. I am loving the feeling of scraping into the ink and of drawing with a printing roller and applying direct layers of colour.
Having lived in the north – Rossendale Valley and Clitheroe, and incorporating snippets of that northern landscape in my work, I am now looking at the contrast of the lush Herefordshire landscape to which I have returned.

Adrienne Craddock 2019

Work in Collections

Manchester City Art Gallery, Bury Art Gallery and Museum, Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, Sheeran Lock Art Consultants.