Stephen Spurrier and Craig carter: collaborative page for artists’ book The Paperboy’s Dream, Ugg Boot Press,Toowoomba, Qld, 2005
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Profiles in Print - STEPHEN SPURRIER
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PRINTMAKING traditionally has been the most
democratic and collaborative of all of the major art
forms. Printmakers frequently collaborate with a
professional printer, they work in collaborative workshops
with typesetters and papermakers, participate in joint
portfolios, in numerous print biennales and show in joint
exhibitions of printmakers. Stephen Spurrier is one of
the most collaborative printmakers in Australia, one who
actively seeks out other artists to become participants
in the printmaking enterprise – it is as if he believes that
there is something beyond the authority of the solo voice.
Born in Melbourne in 1945, Spurrier has had a long-
standing love affair with Queensland and since 1998 has
been based at the University of Southern Queensland in
Toowoomba. He began making prints when he produced
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screenprinted images for his school magazine. Then, while
undergoing teacher training at Prahran, Brian Seidel fur-
ther involved him in printmaking and by the mid- 1960s
he was at the then hub of the Australian printmaking
world, in Tate Adams’ workshop at RMIT, where he was
making large complex intaglio prints.
Since his initial solo exhibition at the Crossley Gallery in
Melbourne in 1966, Spurrier has had 26 solo exhibitions
and participated in scores of group shows, many of them
curated and touring nationally and internationally. Although
throughout much of his career he has had institutional
affiliations, he has also largely led an itinerant lifestyle,
travelling widely throughout Australia as well as through-
out Europe, South America and India. Travel encourages
making do with the materials at hand and allows the expe-
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Artists books in progress by Stephen Spurrier working collaboratively by mail with Ruth Johnstone, Sophia Errey, Jan Davis and Normana Wight
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