Master Print is a celebration of our Visiting Artist Scheme, that has been in place since 1980.

James McCreary, Tom Phelan, Robert Russell, Niamh Flanagan, Micheal Farrell, Tony O’Malley, Michael Cullen, Felim Egan, John Noel Smith, Ronnie Hughes, Donald Teskey, Anne Madden, John Kindness, Sean McSweeney, William Crozier, Maser, Hughie O’Donoghue, Cian McLoughlin, Kieran Crowley, Mary Lohan, Gwen O’Dowd.

The scheme has invited many of Ireland’s best known visual artists, including the late Tony O’Malley, Sean McSweeney, Micheal Farrell and William Crozier, while more recent participants include Gwen O’Dowd, Mary Lohan and Cian McLoughlin – these artists are invited to make original prints at our studio with the assistance of our Master Printers – technical experts in printmaking, and also gifted artists in their own right.  In many respects this is a collaborative process, that enables artists that often have little or no knowledge of printmaking to make work in a medium that they are not proficient in.

For the show, Graphic Studio Gallery selects work by four of our current and previous Master printers, James McCreary, Tom Phelan, Robert Russell and Niamh Flanagan, and asks them to select some of their favourite prints that they helped to create by artists that they worked with.

The exhibition illustrates how the Visiting Artist Scheme has enabled some of Ireland’s most renowned artists to make original prints, playing a pivotal role in the development of their practice, and the development of printmaking in Ireland.  It also demonstrates the talent of the selected master printers.