Wall, 1 June 2020

Peter Freeth RA (b. 1938)

RA Collection: Art

Freeth’s aquatint appears as a double architectural study, bisected by a high wall. On either side is a street scene, devoid of figures, evocative of the eerie quiet of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. Compositionally, the print relates to Freeth’s larger etching Divided City with Broken Aqueduct https://www.studiointernational.com/peter-freeth-40- years-of-aquatints-review-art-space-gallery-islington The larger plate includes two ghostly figures, one on each side.

Over the course of forty years, Freeth developed and refined a radical aquatint process whereby all of the tones, from light to dark, are bitten simultaneously, rather than in multiple stages. Freeth begins by painting a composition in etching ink, and prints that onto a clean plate. He then shakes aquatint resin onto the plate, and the plate is dipped into the acid only once. With its rich range of painterly tone and texture, subtle transitions and delicate play of light, Wall exemplifies this distinctive technique, unique in the world of printmaking.