Josef Sekalski (1904-1972) was born in Turek, central Poland. He joined the Polish Forces in exile during the second World War. After the war he settled in St Andrews with his partner Roberta Hodges, herself a painter. He was appointed lecturer in printmaking at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 1957, a position he held until he retired in 1970. Barbara had enormous respect and affection for Josef and began her printmaking career under his tutelage.

“Josef Sekalski’s art education and vast practical experience fused to produce a most sensitive and responsive teacher, qualities that earned him the trust and admiration of the students under his charge. Many were to profit by his wide knowledge of the history and development of wood engraving, of methods and materials employed and of all the technical problems met in it.
In the years Josef spent teaching, the printmaking department flourished under his guidance into one embracing all forms of contact and intaglio printmaking techniques. When Josef finally retired from lecturing in 1970 he left behind a department of which he could be extremely satisfied and had experienced numerous teacher/student relationships which developed into ones of close and lasting friendship.”
Adapted from a biographical text by the printmaker Robert Fraser .

The Sekalski prize is awarded to students of illustration for excellence in printmaking.

Ron Stenberg was head of the Illustration Department at Dundee College of Art and became a great influence on students throughout his tenure. Babs and Ron were lifelong friends.

In addition to his reputation as an illustrator, it was as a draughtsman that Ron was very highly regarded.

Born in Auckland and of Swedish lineage, in 1919 Ron Stenberg became interested in art from a young age. At 12, he was accepted into the Elam School of Art in recognition of his exceptional artistic ability. It wasn’t exactly a secret that the young Stenberg was considered a prodigy. Life at Elam was not all fun though. There was Ron’s accident when a truck delivering coal to the drill hall ran over him. The accident left some long-lasting effects, especially damage to his knees, resulting in much pain and discomfort in later years.
After the outbreak of war Ron was called up in 1941 for National Service and quickly attained the rank of sergeant and became a mapping instructor attached to the Field Intelligence Unit.
After the war, he set up advertising agency Newson Stenberg, which grew to become a big player, handling major accounts such as Fisher & Paykel and Rothmans. In 1954, the Stenberg family set off for Scotland, only to find he had been awarded the Carnegie Travelling Scholarship, which meant Stenberg had to return to New Zealand for two years.
He became a council member of the Auckland Society of Arts.
In 1956 he went to Sweden, then to Scotland, and to Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee where he became Head of Department of Illustration within the Design School. He retired 1984.
He exhibited with the Royal Scottish Academy, The Royal Scottish Watercolour Society, The Glasgow Institute and the Royal Society of British Artists, London. He has work in the National Gallery of New Zealand and the Melbourne National Gallery. Solo and group exhibitions were held in Scotland, Sweden, London and New York.
The 1st Battalion of the Black Watch in 1968 commissioned him to record the uniforms and weapons of the Battalion during its last days in Germany. Much of this excellent work can be seen at Balhousie Castle in Perth.
Ron was a founding member of the Association of Illustrators (London) and for many years he was a book illustrator for the London Publishers and feature illustrator for the Scottish Daily Express. 
In the 1990s Ron returned to New Zealand and continued to be active in his field of art, and exhibited regularly at The Remuera Gallery.
There is no doubt that Ron was highly regarded as a hugely talented artist and dedicated tutor, and many of his students, including Barbara, remained in contact with him up until his death in 2017.
The University of Dundee has a collection of Ron’s work on slides in the library as well as paintings in its Art Collection.

The top picture shows Barbara soon after becoming a student and below, at a rather boozy Christmas party in the painting school. c.1970. Thanks to Keith Thomson for these pictures.

The feline race was always a large part of Barbara’s life. She was rarely without at least one cat and had a deep understanding of their natures. Many loved furry forms will appear throughout this blog as fleeting presences in her prints. There were many dangers around her cottage and it was a desperate day if one disappeared or got killed on the nearby road.

This is a very early print taken from a 35mm negative. The title and date are unclear and if anyone out there has a copy and can provide a colour jpeg, the blog would be very grateful.

In 1964 Barbara entered Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee to begin a four-year course in Art and Design. It was here she met several influential teachers including Ron Stenberg and Josef Sekalski.

She completed the Diploma in 1969 and was awarded a post-diploma year. This was followed by the award of a Scottish Education Department travelling scholarship which she spent in Italy.

There is very little work from this period of Barbara’s life. Even the Art College has not been able to produce anything from their archives for the 1960’s. However, these figurines, which were displayed in her diploma show, did survive in her personal collection.

Helleborus Niger, The Christmas Rose. This image is taken from a ten colour print that Barbara made specifically as a greetings card for Dundee College of Art. The original was 14″ x 17″. It was printed by lithography in six colours as a student project in the Department of Printing.

1/1 ‘Helleborus Niger’ 1973

This type of press has been used for centuries to print from metal type and wood blocks. It is generally known as a flatbed press because the material to be printed from, type, engraved blocks etc, is laid on a horizontal bed of cast iron. A heavy cast iron platen is allowed to descend by means of a lever and an impression is taken on paper placed between the platen and the type.

A characteristic of Columbian presses is the eagle which perches atop the press on an arm.

Barbara Janette Robertson was born on Thursday 16th August 1945, the only child of Margaret Lawrence Spalding (1902-1957) and James Fleming Robertson (1908-1969) of Woodside Inn, Burrelton. She died at her home in Douglastown near Forfar in Angus, Scotland on 31st July 2018. Barbara was an artist, printmaker and illustrator. Linocut was her chosen medium although she was equally adept with pen and ink and watercolour. She despised oil paint as being ‘like painting with mud’ and only a few examples exist of student work in this medium.

The purpose of this blog is to record her work in all its huge range and complexity and ultimately to build an archive of her prints from the earliest, which she began probably during her time as a student at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee to the last, completed shortly before her death. Over that period of 50+ years she produced an impressive body of work outstanding in its range and quality. As of today the exact number of her prints is uncertain but even if she produced only 5 editions per year (which is a conservative estimate) that would mean a total of 250 prints.

To understand the process of producing a linocut having many colours one can do no better than quote from Babs, writing in 1998. ‘My prints are linoleum cuts printed from one block using the reduction technique. The white of the image is the white of the paper and the colours are printed from light to dark cutting away the colour as it is printed. Completion of the print can take from 3 to 4 weeks, printing every day. The maximum number of prints in the edition is usually 20 and since the block is cut to pieces during the process the image is finite and unrepeatable. I also bite the block with a strong solution of caustic soda to obtain halftone and cloud effects’. [Its seems she later used Nitromors which could be applied more thinly and controllably. The lino was softened thereby allowing the surface to be scratched.]

This simplifies the process to some degree. She does not mention registration. Imagine lifting a piece of lino by its corners and placing it with precision onto an already printed image. [She grew her index finger nail longer so that the lino could be hooked.] It’s not so easy to describe as the printmaker is having to do many things at once. A slight mistake and a print may be ruined, that is, off register. Blurred. So imagine doing that 20 times for each of say, 10 colours and it becomes clear how much skill and dexterity it took to print an edition.

What else? Oh yes, the press.