Penrith Museum and NERAM informally collaborate for technical and artistic printing

The Penrith Museum of Printing (PMoP) and the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) in Armidale, NSW will soon informally collaborate on several occasions to bring together technical and artistic printing.

NERAM is a cultural and arts tourism destination in regional Australia, and home to one of the nation’s most significant art collections outside the capital cities, holding a collection of over 5000 works of historical, modern and contemporary art.

It houses the Museum of Printing (MoP), which is a historically significant collection of printing machinery and equipment, including the FT Wimble & Co. Collection.

The collection also includes letterpress machines, a Linotype machine, guillotines, book binding equipment, wooden and metal type and a history of printing in Australia from 1850 to the early 1900s.

MoP is also the home of the Black Gully Printmakers (BGP), an enthusiastic group of around 15 printmakers who meet on Thursday evenings to create new works and who volunteer to keep the Museum open on Tuesdays and Sunday afternoons.

PMoP member James Cryer, who oversees relationship building in the museum, told Sprinter that the collaboration – one of the firsts for the museum – expands the network of local letterpress museums and their capabilities.

“We all know each other exist, but wanted to build some sort of a network. MoP focuses a lot on hand printing and printmaking, while the Penrith Museum of Printing has working traditional letterpress equipment,” he said.

“As the MoP is very keen to apply that letterpress process to printmaking, we can combine our strengths and increase the awareness of both letterpress and printmaking amongst the wider community.

“And the rest of the committee in the Penrith Museum of Printing fully supports this informal alliance.”

A similar informal collaboration is also in the works with the Printing Museum in Wellington, New Zealand.

NERAM houses the Museum of Printing, which is a historically significant collection of printing machinery and equipment

Cryer also mentioned that the coming together of the PMoP and NERAM will be evident in future industry events such as a print festival, which they have named as ‘Wayzgoose’. NERAM had initially planned for one in October, in Armidale, but due to COVID restrictions had to postpone it to a yet-to-be-determined date.

“The Penrith Museum of Printing was going to send some equipment up to Armidale and have a bit of a field day to showcase the machines and their capabilities,” he said.

“Sadly, COVID restrictions were enforced which meant that the event had to be delayed. But that’s the kind of collaborative efforts you can expect to see in future.”

NERAM curatorial and exhibitions manager Belinda Hungerford said the variety of exhibitions she gets to plan and curate at NERAM reintroduces traditional print form into the digital world. 

“At NERAM we stage a number of exhibitions throughout the year that are either dedicated to printmaking or feature prints. We also have an artist residency that we open to printmakers, allowing them to come to Armidale and use the Museum of Printing to make work,” she said.

“I’m looking forward to the printmaking exhibition, LOCUS, at NERAM in November which will run until the end of January 2022. I invited four printmaking collectives in NSW to create a work responding to the theme of ‘place’.

“Members from the Black Gully Printmakers, Newcastle Printmakers Workshop, Print Circle in Sydney, and the Southern Highlands Printmakers have all made such interesting and thoughtful work. I can’t wait to share it with the wider community.”

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