An illustrated talk by Rebecca Salter, artist and President of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, introducing the craftspeople behind the materials and tools used in Japanese woodblock printing and some more unusual uses of the technique.
Rebecca Salter studied at Bristol Polytechnic and then at Kyoto City University of the Arts in Japan, where she lived for six years. While living in Kyoto, she studied traditional Japanese woodblock printing with Professor Kurosaki Akira and has since written two books on the subject. Her interest in printmaking is combined with her main practice in painting. Until 2016 she was Associate Lecturer on the MA Printmaking Course at Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts, London.
Salter exhibits regularly in London and internationally, and in 2011 she had a major retrospective into the light of things at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut. A monograph was published to coincide with the show. An accompanying exhibition at Yale University Art Gallery explored links between Western artists and Japan. She has also been artist in residence twice (2003 and 2011) at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Connecticut. Salter has undertaken several architectural commissions including 15 Sackville Street, London W1, St George’s Hospital, Tooting and NGS Macmillan Cancer Unit, Chesterfield Royal Hospital. She has work in many private and public collections including Tate, British Museum, Yale Center for British Art and Yale University Art Gallery.
Salter was elected as a Royal Academician to the category of Printmaker in December 2014 and, in June 2017, was elected as the Keeper of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA). On 10th December 2019 she was elected the 27th President of the RA and became the first female President since the Academy was founded in 1768. She was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2025 New Year Honours, for services to art.
This talk is presented by the OPW in support of the Farmleigh Gallery exhibition Kwaidan - Encounters with Lafcadio Hearn, which runs until Sunday 24th August, and as part of the Farmleigh House cultural programme for 2025.
Photograph © Getty Images, Tristan Fewings
www.rebeccasalter.com
www.kwaidanexhibition.com
www.farmleigh.ie
