Sax Shaw 1916 to 2000

We have all been busy today, Christian and Andrew cleaning frames and I have been photographing work for the catalogue, and setting up some ephemera to tell the story of Sax’s broad range of work. So far we have an exhibit on church furnishings and vestments, stage and costume design and murals. Work is progressing on Giclée prints, we have selected pieces ranging across Sax’s working life and range of work, we expect that there will be something to appeal to everyone.

I have been working on preparing pieces for reproduction using the Giclée process. It is fascinating looking at the work and realising the depth of colour and tone that Sax achieved, especially in his watercolours. It has been a real challenge achieving the same vibrancy in the prints. So far the early pulls are looking good, so we should be doing production runs in the next week or so. In the collection there are a number of laser prints that Sax did in the 1980’s. He really drove the local copy shop mad with the challenges he set them. This new series of prints are of a far finer quality and will be in numbered editions for this exhibition. We hope that creating these affordable pieces will let many more people enjoy Sax’s work in their own homes and offices.

A selection of art from the Shaw family collection has been made and we are now preparing the pieces for exhibition. After considerable discussion we feel that as many of the pieces have frames that Sax selected, we should show them in this fashion rather than start a wholesale reframing exercise. This may lend a slightly eccentric appearance to the exhibition, but we feel it is appropriate.

In addition to the original works we will be creating some reproductions using state of the art digital technology. Sax was fascinated by the way paintings in particular could be copied and he did undertake some experiments with laser copies when the technique was quite new and we do have one or two of these early copies in the collection.

This week sees the opening of the exhibition “Weaving the Century” at the Dovecot studios in Edinburgh. We will be at the opening to see various of Sax’s works on display and to distribute cards for the exhibition. We hope to see you there.

This site celebrates the life and work of Sax Roland Shaw, 1916 to 2000. We aim to locate and identify extant works, in particular tapestry and stained glass. We also aim to catalogue the Shaw family collection and keep people up to date with news about exhibitions and availability of work for sale at auction or from private collections. Please do leave us a message or sign the visitor’s book