John Preston
I studied architecture and art history at Cambridge. I came back here for work, and for the opportunity to learn printmaking at an evening class. I had always painted and drawn, but I wanted to be able to keep different stages of a developing composition.
The CCAT class tutor suggested I start with etching, and I have been etching ever since. I use a range of techniques including drypoint, line etching, aquatint and sugar lift to create my images. When possible, I draw plates on the spot, often in reverse so the print will be the right way round.
I was elected a member of the Cambridge Drawing Society in 1982. My studio is at St Barnabas Press, where I demonstrate etching techniques and printing during Cambridge Open Studios.
I was invited lead artist for a major sold-out exhibition in 2014 at the Heilongjiang Province Fine Art Museum in Harbin, China. In 2016 my aquatint “Floodlit Lantern” was selected by Norman Ackroyd RA for “The Masters: Etching” at the Bankside Gallery.
My work is featured in “Limited Edition” a Mascot Media book published for the Cambridge Original Printmakers Biennale 2018, and in “The Cambridge Art Book” published in 2017.
As Historic Environment Manager for Cambridge, I was responsible for historic buildings and trees across the city. These feature in my prints, along with landscapes, people, trees, my travels and more.
I worked on my new “Great Plane of Ely” sugar lift aquatint and paintings on the spot during last year’s Plein Air painting weekend. My most recent print “Quartet” is based on a drawing I made while helping at the London International String Quartet competition. My big new print “The Aurora’s Beethoven 9 encore 21 August 2024” seeks to encapsulate 2 amazing minutes in which orchestra members (who had played the whole symphony from memory) performed their encore from among us, the audience in the stalls.
camopenstudios.org/membership-account/profile/jpreston/
E-mail: john.preston@cantab.net
Open Exhibitions including:
East of England Show 1981-94 (best picture 1985, prizewinner four times)
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1984, 1985 (also shortlisted nine times)
Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers 1984, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991
Premio De Grabado Maximo Ramos (Ferrol, Spain) 1990, 1991
National Print Exhibition 1998
Cambridge Open Art Exhibition 2014-16 (Top 20, 2016)
The Masters: Etching, Bankside Gallery, London 2016
Shared and invitation exhibitions including:
20th Century British Etchings, Sebastian Pearson Gallery, Cambridge 1990, 1994
Venice City of the Winged Lion, Stephen Bartley Gallery, London 1991
The Art of Printmaking, Williams Art, Cambridge 2010
Cambridge Original Printmakers’ Biennale 2016, 2018
Cambridge Perspectives: Architecture in Translation, Cambridge 2016-7
One and two person shows including:
Old Fire Engine House, Ely 1983, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2014
London Weekend Television Centre 1985, 1986
“Silver Silvium” (trees) with Neil Warmsley, Williams Art, Cambridge 2013
Heilongjiang Province Fine Art Museum, Harbin, China 2014