Celebrating 40 Years of Collaboration | Matt Saunders printed by Thomas Jennions

On the occasion of BORCH Editions’ 40th anniversary, four of the printmaking studio’s collaborating artists 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. Thomas Jennions joined the team in 2015. The printers’ skills and experience have been crucial in establishing sustainable, long term working relationships with internationally renowned 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 second contribution, Matt Saunders’ etching Marthe in the Garden, is printed by master printer Thomas Jennions.

Matt Saunders’ print is based on photographs taken by painter Pierre Bonnard of his life-long companion, Marthe de Méligny. Saunders has long been interested in the intersection of painting and photography, particularly in the representation of the human figure in both media. Bonnard was among the first generation of painters with access to simple, hand-held cameras, and Marthe in the Garden reflects Saunders’ fascination with the camera as a painter’s tool.

Marthe in the Garden is a subtle and intentional echo of Matt Saunders’ first collaboration with BORCH Editions, Brigitte in the Reeds. While Brigitte was turning away, hiding her face, Marthe is facing the viewer. But just like Brigitte, she, is in motion, hard to grasp, enigmatic. The print combines three views of the same person, printed in three colors from three copper plates, the layered colour making a space that is both nuanced and complex.

“I have been a printmaker for more than six years now, and I have realized a large number of print projects, but the collaboration with Matt is especially rewarding”, master-printer Thomas Jennions states. “Matt’s insight into the different printing techniques is remarkable, he challenges and advances them, and the results are always stunning and unexpected.”

Matt Saunders, born 1975 in Tacoma, Washington, lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts and Berlin, Germany.