Celebrating 40 Years of Collaboration | Georg Baselitz printed by Mette Ulstrup

On the occasion of BORCH Editions’ 40th anniversary, four of the printmaking studio’s collaborating artists will team up with the studio’s master printers to create a series of anniversary prints.

BORCH Editions was founded by Niels Borch Jensen in 1979 and has since established a position as one of the world’s leading printmaking studios and publishers of fine art prints. Master printers Julie Dam and Mette Ulstrup have been with BORCH Editions for more than three decades. Tom Jennions joined the team in 2015. The printers’ skills and experience have been crucial in establishing sustainable, long term working relationships with the artists.

In celebration of the print studio’s 40th anniversary, BORCH Editions will publish four prints by four artists who have built comprehensive bodies of printed work in collaboration with the printmaking studio. The first contribution, an etching made from two plates by Georg Baselitz, is printed by master printer Mette Ulstrup.

Master printer Mette Ulstrup has been printing with Georg Baselitz ever since he started working with BORCH Editions in 1990. While most artists work in BORCH Editions’ Copenhagen facilities, Baselitz’ studio in Germany is equipped with printmaking equipment, complete with a printing press for test printing. In recent years, Ulstrup has been paying annual work visits to Baselitz’ studio.

“Baselitz is a very steady worker“, Ulstrup explains. “He is constantly working on print projects, and come November, I know it won’t be long before the phone rings, and he will ask me to come to Germany, usually on a very short notice. The process in his studio is extremely focussed. We work, eat, and sleep, until I can return to Copenhagen to continue with the editioning.“

für Niels, the anniversary print created during Ulstrup’s most recent visit consists of two plates: The right plate, a sugar lift aquatint, is a variation on Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai’s famous ‘Self-portrait at the age of 83’, an image Baselitz has been occupied with for years. The left plate, a line etching, depicts a hand, its fingers bent into a gesture. Although Baselitz was working purely from his imagination and did not aim at an accurate representation, he considers the image a representation of Niels Borch Jensen’s right hand.

Georg Baselitz born 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony. Lives and works near Munich, Germany and in Imperia, Italy.