Walkthrough Akky's office

Paul McGillick: Hello I'm Paul McGillick its June the eighth, 2021, and I'm at the home of curator Akky van Ogtrop. Now first a confession. I collect art. Now according to some people for reasons which have never been made clear to me, writers about art, like me, are not meant to collect art. Well personally I think, writers about art who do not collect art, are not to be trusted.

Paul McGillick: More specifically, I collect works on paper. And Akky...Akky's whole career has revolved around works on paper. So Akky, perhaps you can start the ball rolling, if you would perhaps fill us in on your life before you came to Australia, when you immigrated, before you emigrated to Australia from Holland. Just tell us a little bit about where you lived and what your training was and what your professional background was in Holland.

Akky Van Ogtrop: I was born in Bussum. And Bussum is sort of between Utrecht and Amsterdam. I'm just wanting to have some good Dutch pronunciation, thrown in, Amsterdam, Utrecht. And I was born actually in a very musical family. My father was a conductor. And he was also the principal viola player of the Royal Concertgebouw. And my mother was...the actually a fantastic piano teacher, but she was also a concert pianist.

Akky Van Ogtrop: I was the youngest. I had two brothers. And they were okay, actually. So that was all good. Did my primary school there and did in principle half of my high school in another place, Hilversum, before I got very bored with high school. And at that particular time, you could actually do your high school if you were wanting to go in to an art school. And that's what I wanted. And I could finish my high school there.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So I went...to the Royal Academy in 's-Hertogenbosch, and it was the Koninklijke Academie Voor Kunst en Vormgeving, so it was art and design. 's-Hertogenbosch...beautiful old city. Absolutely...wonderful to study. And not only that, but I think the fact that it was the home, where Hieronymus Bosch was born. So that was very much an icon in our eyes.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So that's sort of studying. It was five years at that particular time, three years you did, in principle, nearly everything. So drawing and painting, and of course, printmaking...calligraphy, and a lot of art history. And that was perfect to have that background education.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And the last two years I started to focus on printmaking and graphic design. Because as you know, you always are being told by your parents that you have to select something where you can earn your money and they thought, graphic design, that might do the trick. Yeah, so in principle, that's my study time in 's-Hertogenbosch.

Paul McGillick: So you...and so you as I understand it, though, you came to focus on printmaking. So, I mean, do you recall what attracted you to printmaking?

Akky Van Ogtrop: ...what...well, it was the process probably as well as much as the paper. And I have to sort of go back to why I love paper, because...my father was an incredible collector of first editions music, sheet music. And that's when I as little girl saw the most beautiful images on those sheet music, which was lithography, of course. And beautiful old Dutch paper.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And so I think that that already was something that I used paper I did drawing, it was immediate, you could make sketches and you could cut it and do all that kind of things. So printmaking then really became also the whole process that you could have the lithography, you could cut into timber and you could cut into copper. So I think that that actually was sort of a small start of why I became interested in printmaking.

Paul McGillick: So professionally, we're talking still about the time before you came to Australia. I mean, what were you doing, when you graduated, for example.

Akky Van Ogtrop: I needed a job. So I...I went to Amsterdam, and lived in Amsterdam, and...started to look for jobs. And I was very lucky, and probably the only job I had to apply for...I did my best to apply for the job. And it was manager of an art gallery. And I thought that was terrific...They took me on. And actually he took me in, on. He was an unbelievable...

Akky Van Ogtrop: The gallery was called Galerie D'Eend, which translates into Gallery the Duck, very well known. Working with artists from European artists, Dutch artists. Of course, the the big Rouault and Picasso exhibitions. So it was really a very beautiful big gallery, focusing on paintings, but also combining it with prints and drawings. And in the middle of Amsterdam, what else do you want? Fantastic.

Paul McGillick: With this involve any curatorial work

Akky Van Ogtrop: Later on. First, of course they use me to do all the...well, I learned administration there I think...I think. So on...on that sort of year by year, I was allowed to do the curatorial things. But what we also did was going to art fairs. He was one of the first founders of the Basel Art Fair, Will Hoogstraate, that that was my boss' name. And...so we actually every year, went to the Basel Art Fair.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Every year we also went to Dusseldorf and to Cologne. And it was actually there that I learned a lot and met the most unbelievable art dealers in the world. And of course, artists. So I think it was sort of the the start...the base of what, really in the end became my job.

Paul McGillick: Well you trained as a printmaker...did you ever practice as a printmaker though?

Akky Van Ogtrop: I did. I did. And I even had three exhibitions in Amsterdam with some of my colleagues, which was great fun. But yeah,...You needed to also have your own studio of course, and I didn't have that. And also, life became just different I...I think that I realised that I would be rather...become a curator and see the beautiful art of the other artists, rather than that I was dabbling around. I could have become a master printer. That would have been fun. But I didn't.

Paul McGillick: Okay, so in a minute, what I do want to do is come back to what you're talking about process and paper, which...cause as a collector of works on paper, of course, I can appreciate that..., but let's move on a bit. Because you immigrated to Australia in 1973. And you went to Melbourne, initially. So can you just please tell me what you were doing in Melbourne for that 10 months or something that you were there?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Well, first of all, the reason that...I came to Australia was Joppie, my husband, of course. He got a job in Australia. And...so he said, an adventure, of course. So he said, well, it would be nice if you could come over. And...it will only be for four years, which was an outright lie, of course. But...so it was for four years.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And although I really loved my job, and it was a good job, and I actually was nearly going to go to another job in Milan, I decided...that might be actually very adventurous to see what is on the other side of the world. Not knowing what to expect when I touched ground in Melbourne.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Melbourne...Melbourne at that particular time...still was...that you as a woman, were not allowed in certain...for example, in the pub. When I wanted to have a coffee. I went into a pub, and they said, well, first of all, we don't have coffee. And second of all, you have to be behind that white line. That's where the women are. So that was really a sort of a wake up call.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And also, Joppie...he was sailing, a lot...in a sailing club. And the women were only allowed to be there on Sunday afternoon, I think, after five o'clock. And if you were earlier you stayed in the car, and they came out with a beer and you put that in one of those...how do you call them where you could put a glass in in the car? Yeah. Especially made

Paul McGillick: Perhaps you know that famous story about the actress Ava Gardner. And they shot this Neville Shute novel on location in Melbourne. And she said, asked about Melbourne, she says a good place to make a movie about the end of the world...in those days

Akky Van Ogtrop: in those days? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. And truly. Yeah. And I didn't know anybody. I only knew the parents of an Australian colleague in the arts who actually fled Melbourne to live in Amsterdam. But...

Paul McGillick: So what did you in Melbourne...what were you doing there?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Well, we...Joppie knew, some people who actually had...was an auctioneer, Mason and Greene. And they were really interested to start an art auction. So he said, well, my wife is the person...ask her to start it. And I had, of course, lots of art auctions in Europe, where it's very normal situation.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So I went...I got a sort of a broom cupboard as an office, I had to climb over all kinds of carpets and other things. It was quite...was very surrealistic, but wonderful that I was able to do what I wanted to do. Went to sort of look where to start. And I thought well, like in Holland, it is the...the art galleries, who at a certain time want to auction the works, which they had too long in, in their collection. So I went to some of the art galleries.

Akky Van Ogtrop: One actually was Joseph Brown. Joseph Brown was a very famous art dealer...Australian art and had an enormous big exhib...gallery in the top of Collins Street. So there I went, knocked on the door, made an appointment...knocked on the door, and he led me in. And I started to say, I'm here because it would be good if there is an art auction, and are you interested?

Akky Van Ogtrop: And then he said to me, art auctions, we don't do art auctions here. We have sales. And I was sort of a wha...what sales. So I said of sales, sales you do in David Jones and in Myers. Then he said to me, You European girls always think that you know, everything. And that was the end, of course.

Akky Van Ogtrop: But the one who was really actually wonderful was Georges Mora, from Tolarno Gallery. And of course, with his background in Paris, he knew, but what the art world was about in Europe. So he said he was interested. And I got to know another gallery. And that was Hertha Dabbert. She was German, and she was focusing on German artists. But she didn't stay very long. And we didn't stay very long. So in October, Joppie was transferred to Sydney.

Paul McGillick: So that was what led you moving to Sydney. I just wondering what your...first impressions were of the Australian art scene as we would call it today.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Look, first of all, I have to admit that I didn't know a lot about Australian art...we did have, in the gallery in Amsterdam, we bought a Boyd painting a beautiful painting of the Bridal series. And...so I knew about Arthur Boyd, and Barbara Hanrahan, I knew, and that was only because probably my Australian colleague living in Amsterdam, talked about her and her writings.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So what did I think, two funny occasions in Melbourne to come back to that was...going to try to have an art auction. I also looked in the paper, because people actually advertised art in the paper. And there was this ad, and it says, For Sale Arthur Boyd, and an telephone number. So I rang the telephone...the number and it was a person who lived in Toorak. And he said, yes, come and have a look.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So there I was in Toorak, and knock knock on the door, opens door, there is...he was a lawyer, he led me in his study, and I come in, and there's my Arthur Boyd hanging in his study. So he had bought it at the Basel Art Fair where we showed it. So that was one. And...

Paul McGillick: ...Because, because, the Melbourne art scene was really different from the Sydney art scene.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Absolutely. Actually, that year in 1973...was an exhibition of Gilbert & George in the NGV. That's coming up straight away. So what did I know? It was completely foreign for me, I really...had to learn, learn Australia art.

Paul McGillick: So...let's move on in Sydney to Stadia Graphics, so...because there's...in my notes here, I said something about Stadia Graphics being a kind of oasis in the middle of a desert...Wonderful gallery, and which I'm going to get you to tell us about Stadia, but how did it come about? How did you come to work at Stadia, what was the philosophy of Stadia Graphics? And how do you remember it now looking back and also the how you see the value of Stadia Graphics now, looking back.

Akky Van Ogtrop: When we then arrived in Sydney, I was actually pregnant and got our first child, Floris, a son. So the first years in Sydney, I didn't do a lot of art myself, although I did one exhibition which was in our local little shop, corner shop

Paul McGillick: You mean of your own work?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Of work of my own work. But..., so I started to visit galleries, and was looking actually much more...a combination of Australian art and international Art. And international art was not a lot of international art, except for Stadia Graphics, which started in 1974. So I went there. And over the years, I became friends with Stany and Diana. And Stadia is the two names together Stany and Diana.

Paul McGillick: Ahh, I didn't know that

Akky Van Ogtrop: And I even bought one of my first Australian prints, a John Olsen, which is hanging in the other room there. And then...so then...we got another son, Derk, that was four and a half years later. By that time, Stany had said, well...whenever you would like to come and work here, please tell me because I need you. Which was very kind of him. And so at that time, also, it was easier to get childcare. Australia woke up that women wanted to work as well.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And I started at Stadia Graphics, and that was in 1978...79, I think. And it was fantastic. I learned so much from Stany. And the fact that he really wanted to introduce international works on paper. He had such fantastic connections, especially with Paris, and with galleries, that he was able to actually get those fantastic...Matisse and Picasso exhibitions from Europe into...

Paul McGillick: oh, that was the Vollard suite...

Akky Van Ogtrop: the Vollard...the whole Vollard suite. And Rouault and Vuillard and, you know, the fact that it was possible to get...

Paul McGillick: So this was mixed in with Australia,

Akky Van Ogtrop: And then absolutely. And he was talking about certain gallery, certain artists...who he said to me, they are my bread and butter. And of course, that's where I actually started to know Jörg Schmeisser, who was one of our regular exhibitors, and Jennifer Marshall, of course, and Geoffrey de Groen and all those artists

Akky Van Ogtrop: and actually Geoffrey de Groen, I...I asked him to come because very slowly, Stany started to work much more with Diana who had Stadia Handcraft. And that was downstairs in Elizabeth Street, and the gallery was upstairs. So yeah, it was...I must say it was my saviour. Because I was...at the beginning I found Australia very difficult living here.

Paul McGillick: I've got my in my notes here so that this might be a good point to ask you about the value of works on paper. Because as I was hinting at, in my introduction...to collect works on paper makes you part of a fairly rare breed, right. Now, for some reason works on paper are hard to sell or don't get the visibility or profile of paintings, oil paintings or something like that.

Paul McGillick: So can you...first of all, let's tell me about how you see the value of works on paper. Why they're so important to you? And then secondly, that might be the opportunity to talk about how Stadia came to close. Why Stany wrapped up the business.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah, now, of course...paper...When you, when you really think about how artists, like the great...well let's say Rembrandt and Rouault actually had the most unbelievably beautiful prints. But it's...it's that...that intimacy, you know, and here I am having this piece of paper in front of me. And it's empty and I go...it's that intimacy. It's direct. It's...and that's what a lot of artists, and printmakers tell me, actually, that...that is that whole process of putting your pen or putting...your crayon or whatever on the plate.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And I remember from Jim Dine, he always said...it's that whole process of getting the work on the plate...the image on the plate...you have to think, which medium you have to use to get that end result, what you've got in your head. And, and then he says, it goes on the press. And then that absolute fantastic moment that it is on the press, it's printing and you wait, and then suddenly you can sort of get the paper off, and you see the image.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And he said, that is the most...it's not hilarious, but exciting moment of that whole print making process. So...but you asked me the value of it. Now what value? Are you talking about? The value of money value or the value?

Paul McGillick: I wasn't thinking of money...`

Akky Van Ogtrop: No, but I think...all...what I also believe is that the Australian printmakers are exceptionally good. And...this is something that I just wanted to put in the difference actually, that, that intimacy is that when you've got a painting, you stand away from the painting, and it is much more on a distance. That's what I feel anyway...where were we?

Paul McGillick: It is the materiality of it, isn't it, in a way, cause it's the it's the process, plus the paper cause...I mean, works on paper, we have...involved both reproductive things, but also watercolours and drawings working directly on the onto the paper rather on the plate. So for me, then it's sort of the materiality of it, which seems to align with what you're saying about its intimacy.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah. Yeah. And, and also, I think...you know, the, the, the inventiveness of printmaking, when you really look at at the history, and you start with...with the copper plate and that, but when you look nowadays, printmakers are always trying for new inventions.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And of course, now with.. with the, the...the other photography, for example, they can include, they can include...what is it? I forgot. That you can put it on on your computer, computer generation you can include. And so it is this constant evaluation of the, the, the method of printmaking, to just get that final result that you want and have in your head. Does this make sense? Yeah, does it

Paul McGillick: Yeah. Because but also, we talked about making an impression when you make a print and and that's an interesting word in English, at least cause its got a double meaning to it? I think, with a print, you're always aware of what you call the process. You can't look at a paper without thinking about how it's been made. The process of making.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah, although I think that...that sometimes is a little bit too much of that. And I suppose that...and as I said actually at an opening a couple of days ago, that the process is important, but the...the most important thing is actually the end result. What you have done with it, that that? Yeah, that image. That's what is important.

Paul McGillick: Well I think, because in art, I think, art in a general sense, there's always a tension between, say, what's represented and how it's represented. And what you seem to be saying, you also need a tension or a balance between the process but what the processes results in you can't have an out of kilter can you?.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Nee...now it's...it's really...and later on, of course, you had the...the great American artists, for example, like Motherwell in the sixties, when suddenly printmaking became...an...an...an much...much bigger...the prints became much bigger. And...in that, in that respect, it started to compete with paintings, I suppose.

Akky Van Ogtrop: But it was also that the painters like Motherwell, or like Jim Dine, really started to think, oh but that's another way, another method that I can actually add to that end result what I want to get. And of course, they were working with master printers. But that collaboration together, you had the most unbelievable results of those big prints and images. Fantastic.

Paul McGillick: Okay, well, let's move on...to what happened after you...Stadia closed. So when did Stadia close

Akky Van Ogtrop: Stadia closed in 1988. And the reason definitely was that we...Stany really, really had to focus much more on the Stadia Handcraft, which was becoming bigger and bigger, and Diana really needed him. And so that's when he said, okay. And it was actually also probably earning much better. And so that the last year actually was the year that I had my Dada exhibition there. And you were involved in my Dada live because of my Masters. And so I could do my end...exhibition there, and then a travel to Orange, that was very funny.

Paul McGillick: So you...you were doing your Masters of Fine Arts. And what else was going on. After Stadia for you,

Akky Van Ogtrop: For me...then...because of my good memories of art fairs, I thought, why not start an art fair, as you do? And...I thought, how am I going to do this? Because I, I can not do this on my own. I need some. So I started. I had already started the year before, sort of sounding out people. And in the end, it was Josef Lebovic, who actually said, yeah yeah yeah. He thought it was a good idea. And that's how actually, it started. And it became the International Works on Paper. First, the first name. And...

Paul McGillick: What was the first year that it ran?

Akky Van Ogtrop: in 1989...

Paul McGillick: It's a biennial every two years was it?

Akky Van Ogtrop: No, no, the first and that's...that's how the history went. The first three were every year, in the Intercontinental. Ah, that was fantastic, especially with the music at five o'clock. But you had...the year before the Melbourne Art Fair started. And that was actually biennial. But we did 1989, ninety and ninety-one. And I must say they were fabulous introduction of an art fair, and then only works on paper, of course, but international.

Akky Van Ogtrop: We had the most unbelievable international famous...print...print galleries from the United States from the UK. And so it was...it was it was really something extraordinary what was achieved. Together with Josef. And then after three years...he didn't want to sta...be involved anymore. So I thought, well, I'll better do it on my own then. And that's when it became every two years.

Paul McGillick: So how...What was the response? Because we had alluded earlier to the fact that it's hard to get the public to fully appreciate works on paper, what was the response to the works on paper fit?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Well, it did...it did...it did go actually very well. And I suppose again, going back to Stadia Graphics, that was already such an introduction to the people...of works...to love works on paper. And it was also a learning curve for a lot of collectors. And not only that, but also the state galleries started to collect much more national but also international prints and that that was of course, fantastic. I remember Nicky Draffin. He was the print curator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales...International.

Paul McGillick: Who was that?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Nicky Draffin.

Paul McGillick: Ah, Nicky Draffin...

Akky Van Ogtrop: Wonderful, good stories always. But...yeah, so the response...I also think that our champagne was terrific. And the fact that it was in the Intercontinental was a good location, easy. So, yeah. And it was fun. That was very important that it is fun.

Paul McGillick: So after that few...or parallel to that. You worked with the Biennale of Sydney?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yes, that is...I thought, I'm falling into such funny things, isn't it? So this was the Biennale, in 2000. In ninety-nine, I got a phone call from Paula Latos-Valier. And she said, I need a marketing manager and public program manager. Do you know anybody? I said...not really. Said, do you want to do it? Said I haven't got a clue about marketing.

Akky Van Ogtrop: But anyway, she was a very persuasive, lovely person. So I said, Okay. Ninety-nine, I still see my self in Woolloomooloo, with...It was Christmas time, everybody was on holidays. And I was there on my own, in that big room of the Biennale, looking at documents, learning what I had to do, because nothing had been done. And it was going to open in June, that next year. But it was a fantastic biennale. And it was the one with Waterlow.

Paul McGillick: Oh, that was a good one.

Akky Van Ogtrop: and that was a good one...yeah

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah, and we...what I didn't realise was that the first biennale apparently was, the selection of the artists was done by a committee. And this one was not a selection committee. But it was, I think six curators from all over the world...is Nicholas Serota, and really unbelievable, famous curators who were in the two thousand biennale. And again, I learned a lot, I must say. But it was plunging into cold water. With my marketing. I tell you, it's not good.

Paul McGillick: Well can we now talk about the Print Council?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yes we can.

Paul McGillick: Because first of all, it just background us on the Print Council. So what is it? Why does it exist? And when was it established? And then tell us something about your own involvement, which continues to this day with the Print Council.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah. Again...you have to go back to Melbourne, because the artwork in Melbourne in the sixties was actually quite a thriving art...world. And, but again, printmaking was...still a little bit in the backwaters. So in 1967, there was a group of artists and that was Grahame King, Inge King's husband, and Udo Sellbach.

Akky Van Ogtrop: But the most important person there as a start was Ursula Hoff. Dr. Ursula Hoff was the...the curator for prints and drawings at the NGV, I think that the title at that stage was Keeper of Prints. Fantastic, isn't it? And so she actually was the...the person who said okay, we are going to try to organise the printmakers and...that was the start of the Print Council of Australia. They didn't have a...

Paul McGillick: When was this exactly

Akky Van Ogtrop: in 1967. This year is our fifty-five anniversary. Well there you are. So the aim was in principle that the printmakers had a group together and were able...to have exhibitions and work at RMIT and they actually came together at the NGV, at the National Victorian Museum of [mumble] Gallery.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So the first five years, I think they, they, it was on a shoestring, of course. They didn't have any money. But they made prints, they made their exhibitions. And I think that that was really an, an opening up for a lot of more printmakers in the other states as well, so. I think that from memory and you might remember...in the...was it in the late sixties that there was a...a...traveling exhibition of Australian prints was started with...he was the curator of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Daniel...

Paul McGillick: Thomas

Akky Van Ogtrop: Thomas. And he...that was one of the first major print exhibitions, Australian print exhibitions, which travelled around Australia. And...as far as I know, that might have been the last one as well. So yeah, that was the beginning of the Print Council.

Paul McGillick: So the print council exists to promote printmaking.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Ja. And so we, at the moment, and already for a long time, three major things. One, it is a membership, not for profit organisation...at...promotes printmaking. But not only that, but works of art on paper, artist books, zines. That is now all part of that works of art on paper.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And, then the publication of Imprint, which is an unbelievable...started in 1967, as well. And it's one of the only magazines, which is still available in paper. I think it's one of the only one of its kind about printmaking and art on paper in the world. And we should be absolutely applauded for that. We need ministers...

Paul McGillick: Well you can't have an online magazine about printmaking, can you...cause there's no impression.

Akky Van Ogtrop: No

Akky Van Ogtrop: So that's a very important part. And the other important part is our print commission. And that means that we commission...we ask printmakers to submit...proposals. And then...from that we are selecting or not we, every year it is a different...two different judges or selectors. Always from a different state because we are Australia wide, we have to absolutely make that very clear.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And...so then about seven or eight printmakers are being selected to produce a print for that year...the Commission print. We pay them a fee and they get paper, they make an edition of about 30 and...then members and non members can buy them. So that's in principle, a little bit of bread and butter for the print may...Print Council because we need to earn a little bit of money.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So at the moment we have a team of four...and that's the general manager, Margie, and we have Sharon who does the membership and advertising. Then we have the editor of Imprint is Andrew and our...we have an accountant, Jimmy, who is also an artist by the way. So Print Council is is...it's an exceptional organisation. I don't know any other organisation in the world except for in America, I think, there are still some print organisations and in the UK.

Paul McGillick: We just go back cause the Works on Paper Fair stopped but then you tell us when and then but then you revived some years later.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah. So the...going back to the what...later when I started to have it every two years. I also thought it needs another name. So I renamed it Sydney Art on Paper Fair. I moved from the from the hotel via Powerhouse Museum to the State Library where we were for three years, which was also a fabulous environment. And then the last three years, we were in the Byron Kennedy Hall in Moore Park.

Akky Van Ogtrop: So, I said, and the last one was in 2005 because I thought enough is enough. And it needed I think...and again, you have to stop something at the height of it...well, fame, fortune, I don't know. So that was one of the reasons also that I thought we stop with this and maybe something else comes out of it.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And yes, something else came out of it. In the last couple of years...no, it was two years before the end of the Sydney Art on Paper Fair. There was the Affordable Art Fair. And the director of that was an Englishman, Tim Etchells. He actually wanted to do the Affordable Art Fair at the same time, also at Moore Park as my art fair, the Sydney Art on Paper Fair. Anyway, I said that's not not on. So, it didn't go ahead. But it kept in his head that I did the Sydney Art on Paper Fair, when Tim Etchells started here, the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And Barry Keldoulis, the director, he said, well, might be an idea to also have works on paper. So Barry, actually, I...even I think that we were at a party or so, he said, what about doing another during the print fair? Again, the works on paper, let's do something. And then I said, well, yeah, let's do that to Sydney Contemporary. And as John McDonald says, he says, it is an art fair, within an art fair, and that's Paper Contemporary.

Paul McGillick: And that's continuing...

Akky Van Ogtrop: And that's continuing, so I'm working on it as I sit here, because last year, we had to cancel of course, because of COVID

Paul McGillick: So I went the year before, I think

Akky Van Ogtrop: But yes. And...but yes, this year will be different because of COVID. The, the...there will be less stands because of space and all that. Very interesting, though, I must say. But yeah, its true...September.

Paul McGillick: Alright, so talk a little bit about, now, as we get to the end, about printmaking or works on paper in Australia because we're just not sure when it actually began. Cause we can go back to the French and English maritime artists who were doing works on paper, they're doing watercolours and so on for various purposes, which would then be turned in to engravings not here but back...back in Europe.

Paul McGillick: I'm not even sure when it starts. We all think of the Lindsay's as printmakers but presumably, do you know, I mean, did printmaking, go back beyond...printmaking and works on paper did but what about printmaking did go back earlier in Australia?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah. Well as I said...before we started there was a print...etching press or print press, taken by the First Fleet in seventeen hundred and eighty eight or whatever. And that, there was already that idea of making prints from copper plates which they took from the sides of...the boats and I must say that I have to really get into this a little bit more.

Akky Van Ogtrop: But I think Roger Butler actually wrote about that era or might be somebody else. So they started using copper plates and started actually already making images of...flowers and birds and there was a very famous, now I forgot his name, but so I suppose that already in that time, printmaking became a form of art that early. And yeah, the Lindsay's it was...when were the Lindsay's exactly the end of 1800, 1900, 1920

Paul McGillick: yes probably the 1890's onwards...

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah. So even before that time, there was already quite a lot of printmaking. But yeah, that's Australian history and was...

Paul McGillick: But what about printmaking in Australia today, I mean, can you sort of evaluate it for me? How do you how do you value it? What's your view of it at the moment?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Oh, I think, again, you know, there is such an unbelievable...when you think that this year, we celebrate 60...60 years of the Sydney Printmakers, we celebrate 55 years of the Print Council of Australia. I opened last Saturday, the Print Circle...50 years. And then we have another organisation is 30 years. So it has continued. And not only that, but it also...the quality and the inventiveness. I think that that printmaking in Australia is still blooming. Can you say that blooming? Not really blooming?

Paul McGillick: Well, my impression is, I don't know whether you agree with that. Whatever happened before there was a kind of new wave and people like Grahame King in Melbourne, who led to George Baldessin, Udo Sellbach in Adelaide and Melbourne and Tasmania, that seem to...that generation seem to create a new surge in interest in a new kind of printmaking. Do you agree with that?

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah, absolutely. And not only that, but for example, people like Udo Sellbach, who came after the Second World War, he was educated in...in the Bauhaus style, and then came to Adelaide and started there a new wave. And his wife at that particular...his previous wife, Karin Schepers.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And then your had...Kluge-Pott, Hertha Klugge-Pott, again this that European background. And actually Barbara Hanrahan was working together with Udo Sellbach in Adelaide, as well. So I mean, that was such an unbelievable base, to, to, to step on, and on and on to, to that level, where the printmaking and printmakers are at the moment.

Akky Van Ogtrop: And of course, we must not forget that the Indigenous...time that the Indigenous people started to do the printmaking, also in the sixties and the seventies and nineties, probably not, and that the master printers Basil Hall...Theo Tremblay, who are still working with the people from the north, it's it's fantastic what comes out of it. So yeah, I think Australian printmaking is...is much more interesting than painting. So now that can I say that? Maybe we have to erase this.

Paul McGillick: No...I think Australian printmaking has a kind of maturity and depth to it...as I say, I think it can be traced back historically, it was sort of liberated, to find a voice of its own.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Yeah. Yeah. And it continues to do that. And, and as I said, with, with working, with all the new technology and, and trying it out again, size...probably not being that confined, small. But getting out of that using also other material surfaces than paper. So it's it's that that that inventiveness, what I think is going on very well.

Paul McGillick: Well, Akky, I still remember you walking into the Institute of Contemporary Art in the 1970s. That's when we met, yeah. So it's taken us all this time to have this conversation. So thanks very much.

Akky Van Ogtrop: Well, thank you. It was great. I like it.

Credits

Interviewer: Paul McGillick

Camera, lighting & sound: Cameron Glendinning

Video editing: Dr. Bob Jansen

Technical & assembly: Dr. Bob Jansen