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Bagatelle Brighton

Artist: Rodger, Willie, RSA RGI DUniv · 1930-2018

Bagatelle Brighton

The artist, then Principal Teacher of Art at Clydebank High School was awarded a 3-month residency at the Gardner Art Cetre, University of Sussex at…

The artist, then Principal Teacher of Art at Clydebank High School was awarded a 3-month residency at the Gardner Art Cetre, University of Sussex at the tail end of 1971, funded by the Scottish Arts Council. He was given a studio space and a solo exhibition, and spent his time making pen and ink sketches of parts of the campus, and in particular of nearby Brighton. These resulted in 11 relief prints executed in pure lino, or in lino and woodcut, many with frottage extensively applied to give added texture.

An impression of one of these prints 'Brighton, November' (1992.137) was purchased by the RSA from the RSA AX in 1972 through the David Muirhead Memorial Fund. The 2020 gift by the artist's family included an impression of each of the other of the Brighton prints, making the RSA the only public collection to hold the complete set.

The work depicts holidaymakers on the beach at Brighton. The artist was in Brighton in the Autumn of 1971 so iyt is very unlikely that he would have encountered such a scene in reality, and the print can be viewed as working with the concept of a beach divided by breakwaters. As such it can be seen as a foil to the deserted beach in Lonely Beach, Brighton (Prints 1 & 2) and in November, Brighton. The impression of the crowded beach was achieved by cutting a small block of the figures and repeating it several times down the height of the print, moving it to left or right to break up the overall composition. Select elements of these sections, notably inflated sun beds, are picked out in flat colour applie dusing a paper stencil.

The same block was used in another linocut print produced in 1972 based on Coldingham Sands in Berwickshire, where the artist took his annual holidays, titled "See You on the Beach." He developed the idea but focussing on the decorative pattern made be fabric windbreaks rsather than by the hordes of holidaymakers per se in the 1972 linocut "The Beach, f.11."

The use of frottage (where the impression of a textured surface, in this case a piece of plywood, is made directly by laying the print over the frottage surface and taking the impression by gently wiping a cloth carrying the background colour diluted enough with turpentine to make the rubbing. This is the first stage in the printing process.

© The Willie Rodger Art Trust