Royal Society of Printmakers
Company Profile
The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers is one of the world's premier printmaking organisations. All of the Society's members are practising professional printmakers, elected after a rigorous selection by a panel of their peers. From our home at Bankside Gallery, next to Tate Modern & on the south banks of the Thames, we hold regular exhibitions showcasing the best in contemporary printmaking.
Originally known as the Society of Painter-Etchers, the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE) was founded by Francis Seymour Haden in 1880 in reaction to the Royal Academy of Arts' reluctance to exhibit etchings and engravings.
We received our Royal Charter from Queen Victoria in 1888 and became the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. Although we changed our name in 1991 to embrace a broader range of printmaking practices, we have retained the abbreviation RE to this day as both our identity and the qualifying letters that follow an elected member's name.
Some of our eminent past members have included Graham Sutherland, Stanley William Hayter, Edward Bawden, Julian Trevelyan and Michael Rothenstein. We are extremely proud of our history, but printmaking is a dynamic and protean pursuit and the current membership contains some of the most innovative and creative artists working in every print-based medium imaginable.
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