Just because a fair is niche, doesn’t mean that its offerings aren’t varied. The London Original Print Fair (Royal Academy, until 26 April), which opened to VIPs on Wednesday evening, 22 April, brings together some surprise celebrity artists amongst its rather erratic booths.
A collaborative effort by the contemporary artists Jake and Dinos Chapman and the supermodel Kate Moss is for sale—Story of the Eye (2015), a set of eight etchings from an edition of 60 for £6,000, unframed—at Paupers Press. Moss is apparently responsible for the titular eyes. Etched 173 years earlier are a pair of works by Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert—A Peasant Girl and Two Peasant Women (1842), which are included in a special, non-selling exhibition of 30 print highlights from the UK’s Royal Collection.
More of the usual print suspects are also at the fair, brought by the 48 galleries, including some fine woodcuts by Dürer (1471-1528, price range £6,000-£17,000 at Zurich’s August Laube), a selection of 1930s etchings by Picasso (from the so-called Suite Vollard, priced around £20,000 each at London’s Frederick Mulder) and an imposing Howard Hodgkin print that dominates Alan Cristea’s solo-artist booth (La plume de ma tante, 2012, edition of 12, £21,500 unframed).