CCA Galleries Online Buy limited edition prints from 40 pounds

As well as selling artwork by Britain's most famous artists, CCA also has an archive of prints by lesser-known artists that are available to buy online for as little as £40....

CCA has published hundreds of artists over the years and it can be confusing to try and find artwork that is in the right price-bracket for you. Some of our most popular and successful artists have work available for sale at ccagalleries.com at prices that range from £40-£400:

Richard Tuff, Heidi Konig, Chloe Cheese, Charlotte Cornish, Sonia Rollo, Richard Spare, Anna Marrow, Phil Greenwood, Jurgen Gorg, Kathleen Caddick, Brad Faine, Ilana Richardson, Terence Millington, Annora Spence...and many more

Works by these artists are all limited edition authentic original prints, signed by the artist,  that don't have to cost the earth. Start your art collection for less than you were expecting!

The Story Behind Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

People may not have heard of Peter Blake, but everyone recognises the album cover artwork he created for The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. However most people do not know the story behind the image, that in fact Sgt. Pepper's was not a collage but a full-scale 3-d set that Blake created and then had photographed.

Unlike most fine artists, Blake has always accepted commercial assignments and believes in the importance of graphic design in his work. Blake believes that these projects pushed him to expand his subject matter and develop new techniques. Of course commercial work also fitted into the essential ethos of Pop Art: that mass culture and commercial imagery could become part of fine art.

Blake and his then wife (Jann Haworth) collaborated on Sgt. Pepper's. The commission came to Blake via his then art dealer, Robert Fraser, who was well known in the London music scene. He was paid  a flat fee of £200, which is obviously a minute amount considering the success of the album, but at least it brought his work to the attention of millions. The concept for the image came from Paul McCartney's request that the group be presented as if accepting some sort of civic award, and Blake decided to make the crowd surrounding the four members of the band full of famous folk. The juxtaposition of unexpected people from diiferent eras and locations is an idea which has always pleased Blake and crops up in much of his work, and here we see it in full flow. Blake actually asked each of the Beatles to make a list of the people (living or dead) that they would like to surround them on the cover.

The Beatles were placed centrally, posing in colourful marching band outfits, with instruments in hand. Beside them stand life-sized wax work figures of their younger selves in their 'mop top' incarnation. Blake and Haworth had life-sized photographic cut outs made of the personalities that would make up the crowd (seeking permission from the ones that were still living- apparently Mae West put up a bit of a fuss about being in a lonely hearts club). These include Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, W.C. Fields etc. (Can anyone out there in the blogospere name them all?). These cardboard cut outs were then arranged in a photographic studio. Haworth created the sculpture of the little girl with the Rolling Stones jumper that sits on the right-hand side, and all the foliage in the foreground is absolutely real and painstakingly arranged by Blake.

The final image is from a photograph of this surreal scene taken by Michael Cooper. To get further fascinating insight into the making of Sgt. Pepper please visit the CCA YouTube channel where you can see a video of the work in progress.

CCA Art Bus and the Linton Childrens Book Festival

At CCA Galleries we believe that art is about more than business; it it something that inspires and moves, and should be shared with as many people as possible. That's why, as well as taking the Art Bus to support exhibitions at our approved stockists, we try to visit as many schools and get involved with as many community projects as possible.

Last weekend we visited the Darryl Nantais Gallery in the idyllic village of Linton near Cambridge. We certainly packed a lot into our visit; starting by spending a day at Linton Village College and the Granta School, where they has been studying Sir Peter Blake in their art lessons. The looks on kids' faces in priceless when they see the Art Bus roll into their playground, and their enthusiasm to get on board and find out what it's all about is universal. The next day we went over to Linton Heights Primary School, where all the pupils were dressed up as characters from their favourite books (as part of the Childrens' Book Festival). The Art Bus and the work of Blake were inspiration for two competitions arranged as part of the festival: poetry and art. The poems were inspired by one of Blake's recent artworks Birds from the Paris Quartet. One of my favourites is below:

Sir Peter Blake's Birds

Interesting painting

Really super sight, loads to see.

Perched up high owls sit.

Everyone coming together from all over the world.

Tiny birds everywhere, large ones too.

Everything muddled, everything busy.

Resting robins, storks standing, swans unfolded

Busy birds, busy people

Living in one place.

Above the buildings herons hover, blackbirds flutter

Kingfishers dive, peacocks with fan feathers open.

Every country, person and bird involved.

Blue sky up high, crowds down below

Iindividuals meeeting-dancers, footballers, others watching

Roaming chickens, penguins waddling

Dodos walking, ostrich running

Such a detailed picture.

Bethany Layton aged 7

Blake and Bryan Ferry to perform at the Mending Broken Hearts art auction

Those of you who are attending the BHF's gala dinner and auction of the Mending Broken Hearts art collection on Wed at the Dorchester are in for a real treat!

Not only will the event be attended by nearly all of the artists who have contributed to the appeal so far, Alistair McGowan is the Master of Ceremonies and entertainment will be provided by classical music sensation Blake (www.blakeofficial.com) and the legendary Bryan Ferry (www.bryanferry.com).

CCA hosts a private view of the Mending Broken Hearts collection for the British Heart Foundation

It was great to see all of you who attended the private view of the Mending Broken Hearts collection at Christie's, King Street on Wednesday night.

The evening could not have gone better, surely there isn't a finer space in London to exhibit art than the magnificent ante-room at Christie's. It was such a pleasure to see all of the beautiful original artworks that have been created by our leading contemporary artists so beautifully hung and lit; they really came alive. The process of creating the collection has taken months; liaising with the artists, visiting their studios, picking up pictures from all over the country and curating the exhibition, and when the  moment of culmination finally arrived, and we saw the works together for the first time- it was truly magical.

We would once again like to extend our thanks for the generous support of all the artists who are contributing to this ground-breaking project. Their time and effort has resulted in a collection of breath-taking quality. These images will not only be auctioned in aid of the BHF but have inspired a two-volumed portfolio of original silkscreen prints that are to be launched at the London Original Print Fair at the end of this month. However the project extends far beyond this; the BHF will use the imagery as icons of their 50th anniversary campign next year, bringing contemporary art to a huge new audience.

Many of the artists attended the private view on Wednesday night, including Duggie Fields (who was sporting a very dashing tie that featured his Madonna and Heart motif), Patrick Hughes, Gerard Hemsworth, Brendan Neiland, Sir Peter Blake and Maurice Cockrill.

Of course the point of the event was was to raise interest in the auction of 10 of the artworks at the Dorchester next week (14th April), and we hope that the evening will result in absentee bids from people who are unable to attend the auction next week. The collection can be seen in full at www.bhf.org.uk/art where absentee bid forms can also be downloaded.

Mending Broken Heart Art Auction and Gala Dinner

Calling all contemporary art lovers! A few tables are still available for the Mending Broken Hearts Art auction and gala dinner in aid of the British Heart foundation.The event takes place at the Dorchester Hotel on the evening of 14th April.

As well as the auction of 10 original works of art by artists including Damien  Hirst, Sir Peter Blake, Duggie Fields, Antony Micallef, Maggi Hambling, Rob Ryan, Patrick Hughes, Brendan Neiland, Barbara Rae and Tom Phillips, we have two fabulous surprise bonus lots to be revealed on the night.

A four course dinner will follow a champagne reception and private view of the artwork. The evening will be hosted by Alistair McGowan, with enteratainment from Classical Brit-award winning group Blake and Bryan Ferry.

Tickets can be bought indivdually for £250, table prices start at £2,500. A website with full details of the lots is to be launched soon. For more information on this very special event please call Clare Clinton on 01252 797202 or email clare.clinton@ccagalleries.com

CCA Art Bus

You may have seen a groovy looking pop art double-decker cruising around the country in the last year, but you may not have realised that the Art Bus belongs to CCA Galleries. We work very closely with our artists are always open to ideas on how to make art more accessible. So when Sir Peter Blake's wife, artist Chrissy Wilson, suggested that it would be fun to have a rock n' roll tour bus for art rather than music, we ran with it.

A year or so later the CCA Art Bus was born. Sir Peter was kind enough to design the bus from the iconic pop art exterior down to the union jack cusions inside. We rescued an old Liverpool street bus (which we thought appropriate because of Peter's beatles connection!) and converted it into a mobile art gallery. However, the Art Bus is more than just a bit of fun; it is a fantastic way to take art to people who might not otherwise see it. Many curious citizens hop aboard the Art Bus simply because it is 'pimp my ride' x 100, the atmosphere on board draws them into the pictures that are exhibited, and they end up having an art-experience. We exhibit all the artists that we publish on the bus, though of course it is most readily associated with Peter Blake. We take the bus to community events, art fairs, schools and colleges, and to support the galleries across the country that sell our artist's work.

We do not sell artwork on board the Art Bus, it is used purely for an exhibitiona and educational space, for this reason people often do not make the association with CCA as a commercial gallery. Of course if you see a picture on the Art Bus that you love and would like to buy, all you have to do is contact us to purchase it. But the most important thing is making art fun; you don't have to be dragged around a stuffy gallery any more.

For more information on the CCA Art Bus and for a schedule of its up and coming event please visit www.ccaartbus.com

Print Snobbery

Like many people I love art, going to exhibitions at the Tate, the National Gallery, visiting Paris or Florence to see the Louvre and Uffizi. I studied History of Art at university, and when I thought about art the painterly masterstrokes of Titian or Whistler sprang to my mind, bronzes by Rodin, the rose-window of Notre Dame, I did not think about prints. I later went on to work at Christie's and my latent and unwitting art snobbery continued unabated. I worked in a picture department and spent many a happy hour in the bowels of the building getting my hands on nineteenth century canvases, pitying the poor fools who worked in the Prints Department and never got so much as a whiff of crusty craquelure.

In fact I would never have become enlightened about the value of prints by myself; I guess it's just not a medium that your average art-lover associates with fine art; the only printing that had ever crossed my intellectual path was Andy and his repetitive soup cans etc. It wasn't until I paid my first visit to Coriander Studio (a west London printmaking studio where CCA artists create their silkscreens) that the veil started to lift from my eyes. I suppose I had just assumed that prints were mainly just reproductions of paintings. I did realise that prints could be created as original artworks in their own right; but I didn't understand the reasons for which an artist might choose to do this, didn't understand the versatilty and opprtunity to experiment that printmaking offered artists. If i had thought about it at all, I suppose I would have concluded that artists that chose to express themselves through print must have chosen that medium because their skills as a painter or sculptor were second rate. Ouch! I cringe to remember.

Ok, so not only are prints (whether that be silkscreen, lithographs or etchings) every bit as valid as painting, sculpure, photography or video installation as an artform, they are also the most accessible and democratic artform: flying in the face of the current trend of art for the super-rich. Artists choose to make prints for two reasons: 1) They are able to achieve effects through printmaking that they cannot achieve in any other medium, and 2) Prints enable their artistic vision to reach a greater number of people . Prints are often dismissed because people believe that the artist may have had little to do with the process of making the print; we imagine that the production process is all machine or computer-based; prints just being churned out from a glorified photocopier. The reality couldn't be more different. The artist is involved at every step of the printmaking process: he creates the design, chooses the colours, oversees the printing, decides on any surface augmentation and signs-off on each print at every stage.

The process of creating a silkscreen print is more intricate than many realise. For every colour in a finished silkscreen (this is regularly up to 40 colours) a separate stencil must be created. So a stencil is made that masks out every area of the design except those that will be, for example,  red. This stencil is attached to a screen of stretched silk or synthetic fibre, and the red paint squeezed through onto paper below. Pushing the paint through the screen is done by hand and is repeated for every copy in the editon. The process is then repeated for every colour in the design, and gradually as the layers of coloured paint build up on the paper the final image is revealed. Once the design is complete the print is often finished by the hand apllication of glazes, diamond dust, gold leaf etc. The skill of the printmaker is that the viewer will not be able to see any difference between any copy in an edition. The irony is of course, that this is the very reason that we tend to value prints less than paintings in the first place. There are also methods such as monoprinting and monotyping that use print technology but result in a print that is unique.

The other reason that people tend to dismiss prints is misunderstanding over edition sizes and authenticity. The rules are very simple: an authentic print will be signed and numbered by the artist, it will also have a certificate of authenticity. When it comes to the numbers of times an image has been reproduced the rules are simple too. Always buy a print that is from a limited edition; this ensures that once that edition of 150 (or whatever the number may be) has been completed, the original stencils (or etching plate etc,) will be dedtroyed, thereby guaranteeing that no more prints can be produced. Naturally, the smaller the edition size the more rare and desireable  the prints will be, and therefore, the more valuable (price is obviously also dependent on who the artist is). It is standard practice to create a number of prints in excess of the edition number; these may be artist proofs (APs-which are given to the artist), studio proofs (SPs) or HCs (hors commerce copies-for display only). These extra pieces do not effect the value of the edition, and you should ne be concerned about finding the letters AP, SP, or HC on your print in place of normal edition numbers. 

I hope that this has shed some light on common misapprehensions about prints. Keep you eye on our blog for further advice.

Ongoing Work on the New CCA Website

We hope that you are enjoying the new-look CCA Website. Please bear in mind that work on the new site is ongoing. At the moment it may not be possible to view artwork by certain artists, this does not mean that we do not have that artwork in stock- please ring us 01252 797201 to check availability. Being one of the world's largest collection of silkscreens, etchings and lithographs, we have a massive archive of artwork all of which will become available to order online over the coming months.

Currently we are unable to offer framing options online. Again-please ring us if you would like to have your order framed, the framing facility on the website will soon be restored. In the meantime we ask for your patience.

Many Thanks

London Art Fair 2010

I am back in the office after a hectic week at the London Art Fair. Despite the weather and the financial gloom the fair was buzzing, and as always there was so much to see that it was almost impossible to absorb it all. The CCA Art bus was snowed in at the studio in Tilford at the beginning of the week, but managed to get up to town on friday. Our  stand dislpayed a mixture of originals on canvas by Donald Hamilton Fraser, Sandra blow and John Hoyland (many customers do not realise how extensive our collection of originals is, as new section for them on the website is soon to be launched). We also exhibited our stunning new silkscreen editions by Sir Peter Blake, John Hoyland and Barbara Rae. The new pieces made quite a splash; many were keen to see the eagerly awaited Paris Suite by Peter, and more than a few passers by were stopped in their tracks by the wall-power of the new Hoyland works.

Meanwhile the Art Bus was parked outside cheering weart fair-goers and exciting school children with its unique brand of fun. It  certainly added a splash of colour to the forecourt of the Business Design Centre, and we must say thank you to the security staff there who looked after her so well.

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